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Sexual lifestyles in injecting drug users in Italy: potential for HIV infection transmission
Author(s) -
SASSE HARTMUT,
SALMASO STEFANIA,
CONTI SUSANNA,
REZZA GIOVANNI
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
british journal of addiction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.424
H-Index - 193
eISSN - 1360-0443
pISSN - 0952-0481
DOI - 10.1111/j.1360-0443.1991.tb01875.x
Subject(s) - drug , medicine , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , transmission (telecommunications) , sex partners , demography , heterosexuality , sexual transmission , psychiatry , psychology , family medicine , homosexuality , condom , syphilis , electrical engineering , microbicide , sociology , psychoanalysis , engineering
To better target efforts aimed at modifying sexual behaviour among injecting drug users (IDUs), we conducted a detailed analysis of sexual partners and practices reported by 1214 Italian heterosexual drug users during the period June 1985–June 1987. Females were more likely to have only drug‐using partners (42.8% vs 17.1%), while males were more likely to have only non drug‐using partners (50.5% vs 21.4%). Female drug users were more likely to report either one partner or >10 partners, while males were more likely to report 2–10 partners. Nearly 90% of women with only drug‐using partners had only one partner. Overall, 29% of women with only non drug‐using partners reported that they always used condoms. This proportion increased to 65% among women with >10 non drug‐using partners. In Italy, male IDUs may play a greater role than female IDUs in sexual transmission of HIV infection to the heterosexual non drug‐using partners.