Risk Indicators of Depressed Mood among Sex-Trade Workers and Implications for HIV Risk Behaviour
OBJECTIVES:
To
determine the prevalence of depressed mood among people who have traded sex for money in the Saskatoon
Health Region (SHR), the adjusted risk factors for depressed mood among this
sample, and if depressed mood was associated with decreased self-efficacy for
safe sexual practices and injection drug use.
METHODS:
Two-hundred
ninety-nine people who have
traded sex for money were surveyed with validated instruments for measuring
risk behaviours, depressed mood, and self-efficacy for safe sexual practices.
RESULTS:
The
sample consisted primarily of low-income, poorly educated Aboriginal women,
many of whom also indicated using injection drugs. Using the 16-point score cut-off for the
Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, 84.6% of participants had
depressed mood. When the cut-off score was 23 points or higher, 65.9% had
depressed mood. After multivariate analysis, covariates that had an independent
association with depressed mood included injecting a drug in the past 4 weeks, suffering the death or permanent separation from
a parent before the age of 18, and physical
assault or abuse by a partner in adult life.
Depressed mood was associated with lower self-efficacy scores for safe sexual
behaviours.
CONCLUSIONS:
Our
study suggests that high rates of depressed mood among people who have traded sex for money is associated with
injection drug use and low self-efficacy for safe sexual health practices.
These findings are important and may help explain the high rates of human immunodeficiency
virus within the SHR.
- 1Research Study Coordinator, College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
- 2Adjunct Professor, Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
- 3Assistant Professor, School of Public Health, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
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