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Where do sex workers go for health care? A community based study in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire
B Vuylsteke1, P D Ghys, G Mah-bi
1Institute of Tropical Medicine, Belgium. bbv1@cdc.gov
Objectives:
To describe health seeking behaviour of female sex workers in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
Methods:
A population based survey among a representative sample of 500 female sex workers and six focus group discussions.
Results:
The sites of first encounter for care for the last STI episode included a public hospital or health centre (28%), a private clinic (16%), a confidential clinic (13%), a pharmacy (13%), and the informal sector (23%). The agreement between preferred and actual services used was weak (kappa 0.16).
Conclusions:
Sex workers expressed interest in seeking STI care in a wide range of public and private healthcare facilities. Those services should be upgraded to better respond to their sexual health needs.