Pustaka Ilmiah Universitas Padjadjaran

Abstrak

Drug use and HIV transmission risk behavior among HIV patients in West Java, Indonesia

Background: Indonesia, having a population of around 250 million inhabitants, is one of the fastest growing HIV epidemics in Asia. People who inject drugs (PWID) have constituted to be a major component of the country’s HIV epidemic. Lately, the trend has shifted from injecting drug use to heterosexual transmission and mother to child transmission. Therefore, understanding the characteristics, sexual risk behaviour, and drug used that can influence sexual risk behaviours especially in key population, should be studied. Method: Data was collected consecutively from January to June 2012. There were 281 respondents in Bandung, West Java, consisted of 144 patients from HIV Clinic, 39 patients from Methadone Clinic, and 98 PWID in community, using Blood Borne Virus Transmission questionnaire and Addiction Severity Index questionnaire. Result: All respondents in HIV and methadone clinic and 83% of PWID in community were HIV positive. Twenty seven percent of total respondents engaged with sexual risk behaviors in the last one month with the largest percentage in PWID in community (39%, p< 0,01). Almost half of them used drugs in the last 6 months with the largest percentage in PWID in methadone clinic. The most used drugs were alcohol over threshold (30%), benzodiazepines (25%) and heroin (25%). Using drugs (OR 2.4; 95% CI 1.4 – 4.2) was significantly associated with sexual risk behavior. Conclusion: Sexual risk behavior and drug use problems among key population still have to be addressed in the HIV intervention program.