Showing papers by "Marguerite Ennis published in 1995"
TL;DR: While a predisposition to reject sharing correlates with safer rejecting and condom use, the predispositionTo enhance targeted interventions changes in public and agency policy that create a social environment conductive to behaviour change are required.
Abstract: Interviews were conducted with 582 intravenous (IV) drug users aged 16-55 (85.9% of whom were male) living in Toronto Canada so researchers could examine the biographic and predispositional determinants of HIV preventive behaviors: equipment sharing (not receiving and not giving) and condom use (with regular partners casual partners and sex clients). This study was part of an evaluation of one of Canadas first HIV prevention programs for IV drug users which included education counseling needle and syringe exchange and an environmental campaign to Keep the Needles Off the Street. Cocaine was the most commonly abused drug (95.4%) in the last six months. Condom use was highest with sex clients (53.1%) followed by regular partner (43.1%) and casual partner (30.8%). The researchers had adopted a two-stage sequential approach for a logistic regression analysis. They first applied biographical and drug use variables to model each of the preventive behaviors. They then included the behavioral predisposition factors in a second set of models. Younger IV drug users were more likely to practice safer sex and safer needle use than older IV drug users. IV drug users who had been in prison were more likely to use condoms with sex clients and not to give used equipment to others. Among all substance types only heroin and barbiturate use were linked to sexual risk. The predisposition to reject equipment sharing related to safe injecting and condom use while the predisposition to accept safer sex only related to condom use suggesting that the mechanisms for behavior change associated with safer sex and equipment sharing may vary. Needle exchange programs exist for IV drug users and focus only on the individual. These findings suggest that these programs appear to be ineffectual. Improvement of targeting and prevention strategies including creation of a social environment conducive to change is needed.
22 citations