Abstract
BackgroundMigrants in Italy are prevalently young adults, with a higher risk of sexual transmitted infections (STI) and HIV infection. Promoting consistent as well as correct use of condoms could reduce failure rate due to their improper use. The aim of our study was to evaluate Condom Use Skills among a migrant population recently landed in Italy, hosted in a government center for asylum seekers.MethodsThe study sample was composed of 80 male migrants. Sanitary trained interviewers submitted a questionnaire to participants to investigate age, provenience, marital status, educational level and knowledge about transmission and prevention of HIV/STI. Then, we assessed participants’ level of condom use skill with the Condom Use Skills (CUS) measure by using a wooden penile model. The interviewer filled in a checklist and assigned 1 point for correct demonstration of each behavior that may prevent condom failure during sex.ResultsParticipants’ median age was 26 years and the sample was composed of 54 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and 26 from Middle East. Most of them were married, with a lower middle level of education, up to 8 or 5 years. Half of the sample achieved the highest score in the questionnaire and our CUS showed a large number of people with middle high score classes. The Spearman’s rho was 0.30, therefore answers to the questionnaire and CUS score appeared correlated (p < 0.05). In the multivariate model, to have a higher CUS score resulted to be associated to be older than 26 years (p < 0.05), with a higher level of education (p = 0.001), and a higher score in the questionnaire (p < 0.05). There were no significant differences in the level of CUS between single or married men and between African and Middle Asian migrants of the sample.ConclusionsOur study shows that educational level influences the quality of knowledge and awareness about STI/AIDS and contribute to correct condom use. Since the half of participants had a low educational level and linguistic problems, the risk of missing campaigns messages or misunderstanding informative materials increases. Direct observation of condom-application on penile model may offer realistic assessment of application skills in these individuals.
Highlights
Migrants in Italy are prevalently young adults, with a higher risk of sexual transmitted infections (STI) and HIV infection
The aim of our study is to evaluate Condom Use Skills among migrant population that is located in our local community
Studying the general level of Condom Use Skills in our sample, composed of migrants recently landed in Italy, we find no significant differences in the level of Condom Use Skills between African and Middle Asian migrants
Summary
Migrants in Italy are prevalently young adults, with a higher risk of sexual transmitted infections (STI) and HIV infection. The aim of our study was to evaluate Condom Use Skills among a migrant population recently landed in Italy, hosted in a government center for asylum seekers. Nowadays there are 5 million regular migrants in Italy (8% of whole Italian population) and a conspicuous number of foreigners without residence permit [1]. Migrants are prevalently young sexually active adults, who seldom know the most frequent STIs or preventive measures. In 2014 annual HIV incidence was higher in migrant population in Italy than autochthonous population (19.2/100,000 inhabitants vs 4.7/100,000 inhabitants), regardless of age. An increased proportion of known HIV cases in Italy are amongst migrants (from 11% in 1992 to 27.1% in 2014 of ) [4]
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