Gemeinschaftsmedizin und Gesundheitserziehung

Abstrakt

STI Care Seeking Behavior and Associated Factors among Female Sex Working in Licensed Drinking Establishments' of Adama Town Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia 2017, by Employing Health Belief Model

Shewangizaw H, Aderajew N and Alemi K

Background: Female sex workers constitute one of the high risk groups for STIs including HIV acquisition and transmission. In many societies Female sex workers face stigmatization, marginalization and discrimination, including in the health-care sector due to this fact great majority of female sex workers tend to self-diagnose and seek over-the-counter medication from pharmacies or use traditional home remedies for STIs treatment rather than visit health institution. Hence, assessing the factors that hinder or facilitate STIs care seeking behavior in this population group is imperative.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from March 01/2017 to 30/2017 among 423 female sex workers. Interviewer administered standardized tool that were pre-tested in Mojo town was used to collect data. Backward conditional multivariate logistic regression model was employed to identify factors associated with STIs care seeking behavior.

Result: Among the respondents 55.9% have utilized STIs care services. Three constructs of the health belief model namely perceive susceptibility (AOR=2.33, CI: 1.13, 4.80), perceive severity (AOR=3.25, CI: 1.65, 6.41) and cue to action (AOR=2.82, CI: 1.46, 5.43) were significantly associated with STIs care seeking behavior. Furthermore, knowledge of sexual transmitted infection (AOR=5.36, CI: 3.08, 9.34), having symptoms of sexual transmitted infection (AOR=3.95, CI: 2.18, 7.16), having non-paying sexual partner (AOR=1.95, CI: 1.09, 3.48) and duration of sex work (AOR=0.5, CI: 0.29, 0.86) were among the modifying variables that show significant association.

Conclusions: The results of this research reveals that 3 components of the HBM perceptions namely perceived susceptibility and perceived severity and cue to action were significantly associated with STIs care seeking behavior. Among the modifying variables having sexual transmitted infection symptoms, knowledge of sexual transmitted infection, duration of sex work and having non-paying sexual partners were found to be strong predictors of STIs care seeking behavior among the female sex workers.