RESUMO
Focus group discussions on barriers to health care and attitudes toward family planning, reproductive health services, and condom use were conducted with 63 women at high risk for HIV due to their own injection drug use, sex with injection drug users, sex industry work, or a history of multiple sexually transmitted diseases. Barriers identified include the high cost of health care, perceived poor quality of care and experiences of discrimination and stigmatization, geographic accessibility, fear of legal/social services punitive actions, misperceptions about the efficacy of birth control methods and condom usage, lack of sterilization services, and lack of male involvement. Where possible, findings from the focus groups are supported with quantitative survey data from a sample of high-risk women (n = 723). Recommendations are made for improving care for high-risk women.
PIP: This article identifies barriers to care for women at high risk for HIV through analysis of both the qualitative data from the focus groups and the quantitative data from both the outreach and the clinic survey conducted in the US. Focus group discussions were conducted with 63 women at high risk for HIV due to their own injection drug use, sex with injection drug users, sex industry work, or a history or multiple sexually transmitted diseases. Results of the focus group study indicated that women at high risk for HIV were concerned about both pregnancy prevention and HIV prevention. The identified barriers include high cost of health care, perceived poor quality of care and experiences of discrimination and stigmatization. Additional to these barriers were geographic accessibility, fear of legal/social services punitive actions, misperceptions about the efficacy of birth control methods and condom usage, lack of sterilization services, and lack of male involvement. Recommendations based on the findings are cited in the article.
