Intervention harms
guilt
Harms related to intervention function were reported by two individuals. Accounts focused on feelings of guilt and shame when they completed online risk surveys.Once you’ve entered into the trial and then it’s like, so, why did you feel the need [to test]? What sort of person do you think you have become where you feel that you have to be tested? And it also made me think, why do I feel the need to be tested so regularly at the normal clinic? […] Am I living a normal sort of lifestyle? Is my lifestyle, is it out of control? Is it the sort of lifestyle that I want? And how, at my age, did I get myself into this position? (Cis man aged 45+ years. Repeat testing, well-being harm)For both, narratives describing their experiences focused on their internal monologue and their circumstances. For one, this was living on his own, and for the other it was related to not being open about his sexual orientation with his family. These narratives were focused on guilt, shame and loss of control. Although the surveys and the cyclical nature of the intervention triggered these feelings, using HIVST kits in the home increased this because of the incursion of healthcare into the private sphere, an issue specific to HIVST:I guess because it’s quite a clinical thing actually, you know, when you think about it. It’s quite a clinical thing to be doing in your own room. It’s like, you know, something you would ordinarily have done by someone who’s trained, but you’re having it in a different way and you’re having it in a completely different setting. So maybe it would be easier to, kind of, make it be I guess more normal in that clinical [setting]… (Cis man aged 18–25 years. Repeat testing, well-being harm)