STUDY OF HIGH-RISK BEHAVIORS AMONG HOMELESS PEOPLE

Background and Aim : Also, among 12 million drug injectable people around the world, more than 50 percent of people are afflicted with hepatitis C, and 20 percent are infected with HIVMethods : This study was conducted among 150 referred people in transit centers or those who were living in public halls in the 15th district of Tehran, who were living adjacent to highways. They were referred to hospitals to receive harm reduction service. All subjects were assessed with informed consent and their names were not recorded on the basis of agreement between the two parties. The instrument of this study was the questionnaire for assessing ISAP high risk behaviors that has internal validity and reliability. In this questionnaire, in addition to age, gender and demographic characteristics except the name and profile of individuals, the state of homelessness, sexually hazardous and non-condom-related behaviors, drug injection, joint injection, the use of common pipe, and the latest HIV and HCV tests are considered. Results : ) . Chi-square test or Fisher s test was used to assess risky behaviors with qualitative variables. McNemar test was used to compare the high-risk behaviors of HIV positive people before and after diagnosis. The significance level was considered to be 0.05 in all tests. The results showed that 81% of the subjects were male and 19% were female, 30.2% were homeless and the most used substance was injected, and the most used substance during the past month was heroin (51.1%). The mean age was 37 ± 8.2 years, the mean age of the first time was 14.23 ± 3.63 years and the first injection was 27 ± 3.26 years. Over the past month, high-risk behaviors were reported in the transmission of infection, including the use of an infected syringe at 8.8% and a common syringe in 10.6% of the people. 43.8% of the people have sex with a regular sex partner, including a spouse, and 64.2% have sex in exchange for money or have no sexual relation at all. In the four patterns of sexual intercourse over the past year, 46.6% of men and 67.1% of women never used condoms. The prevalence of HIV + cases in subjects was 24.7%, which was associated with HCV +.Conclusion : The statistics of high-risk sexual relationships were high among homeless who used drugs.

کلیدواژه ها:

HIV.HCV.High-risck Behavior