Abstract
BackgroundHarm reduction is a health-centred approach that seeks to reduce the health and social harms associated with high-risk behaviors, such as illicit drug use. The objective of this study is to determine the association between the beliefs of a group of adult, male prisoners in Iran about the transmission of HIV and their high-risk practices while in prison.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted in 2004. The study population was a random selection of 100 men incarcerated at Rajaei-Shahr prison. The data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire. Focus group discussions were held at the prison to guide the design of the questionnaire. The relationship between components of the Health Belief Model (HBM) and prisoners' risky HIV-related behaviors was examined.ResultsCalculating Pearson's correlation coefficient, a significant, positive association was found between the benefit component of the HBM and prisoners not engaging in HIV high-risk behaviors.ConclusionEducational harm reduction initiatives that promote the effectiveness of strategies designed to reduce the risk of HIV transmission may decrease prisoners' high-risk behaviors. This finding provides initial support for the Iran prison system's current offering of HIV/AIDS harm reduction programming and suggests the need to offer increased education about the effectiveness of HIV prevention practices.
Highlights
Harm reduction is a health-centred approach that seeks to reduce the health and social harms associated with high-risk behaviors, such as illicit drug use
Applying the Health Belief Model Considering the three components of the HBM, Cronbach's alpha was calculated for every question combination, and it was consistently greater than 70%
Using the Health Belief Model (HBM) as the framework to help understand individuals' health related behaviors, high-risk behaviors for the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), our results show that the only component of the model significantly associated with the reduction of highrisk behavior is perceived benefit
Summary
Harm reduction is a health-centred approach that seeks to reduce the health and social harms associated with high-risk behaviors, such as illicit drug use. Injection drug use and high-risk sexual behaviors are key contributing factors to the transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). These behaviours have been identified in international research as two of the most common modes of HIV transmission in the prison setting [1,2]. They have been identified as main contributing factors to increasing rates of HIV infection in (page number not for citation purposes). HIV transmission in Iranian prisons has become a major concern for the country [5]
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