Assessing Risky Behavior of PWIDs in Georgia - Comparable Analyses of Two Samples

Abstract

Background: Consumption of injecting drugs (mostly home-made drugs) and correspondingly needle sharing practice remains the main factor of spreading HIV among people who inject drugs (PWID) (55%) in Georgia. According to last BSS studies there are estimated 45 000 injecting drug users in the country [1,2]. Significant amount of PWID still are beyond existing needle and syringe Programs (NSP) and have never tested on HIV (75%) [3]. The most hidden group for NSP programs are female and young PWIDs who are been considered to be one of the most vulnerable sub-population in this group. Needle and syringe program is being operating in 11 cities of Georgia and is represented by 14 harm reduction sites throughout the country. The program ensures coverage of significant portion of PWIDs (10,000-12,000 per month), and offers different services for HIV/AIDS prevention. Among delivered services Peer Driven Intervention (PDI) is one of the meaningful efforts to attract drug users to HIV prevention programs from more hidden sub-populations [4]. PDI is the comparatively newly developed model for attraction the population of difficult availability for AIDS prevention programs, to facilitate distribution and consideration of the correct information, PDI reveals effective in the direction of HIV-AIDS educational prevention. Recruiting the drug users by the peers is carried out by means of monetary, promotional incentives -however it is comparatively cheap, compared to the traditional outreach model and is successfully applied for covering the large sample of the various groups of drug users - female and young drug users [5]. Peers attracted by PDI are mostly never reached by any HIV programs, accordingly their knowledge and risky behavior stayed relatively unfavorable and poor.