[Evaluation on the effectiveness for respondent-driven sampling method among men who have sex with men in Beijing,...

Objective: To evaluate the randomness and representativeness of respondent- driven sampling (RDS) tool in conducting the investigation in MSM population, in Beijing, 2017. Methods: RDS tool was used to recruit MSM population for a face-to-face interview with structured questionnaire and serological tests. Results: A total of 600 MSM people were sampled and interviewed. The median number of personal network of seeds was 10, which was higher than other MSM people recruited. The numbers of recruitments by wave presented a skewed positive distribution and the highest number was in the fourth wave. It was also dramatically varied from different seeds. Three seeds had the longest chains and had recruited 184, 113 and 92 MSM people, respectively. In contrast, five seeds recruited less than 10 MSM people. Two college students were the most non-generative seeds and each recruited only 1 MSM person. After five to nine waves of sampling, the major demographic characteristics reached equilibrium. Both convergence and bottleneck plots of major demographic characteristics reached convergence, although the plots on marriage and education did not. The homophiles of characteristics were all closed to 1, except for education. The HIV positive rate appeared as 7.9% (95%CI: 4.4%-11.4%) . Conclusions: Results from this study showed that RDS could be used as a feasible sampling method for the study on MSM population with major demographic characteristics reached equilibrium. The process of recruitment appeared controllable and reasonable, showing that this could represent the MSM population in Beijing, in some degree.