Self reported risk behaviour among injecting drug users: self versus assisted questionnaire completion.

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Epidemiology
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Accurate self-reported data on risk behaviors is crucial for effective public health interventions among injecting drug users (IDUs).
• Needle and Syringe Programs (NSPs) are key sites for recruiting IDUs for surveys.
• Understanding factors influencing self-reporting accuracy is essential for data validity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare self-reported injecting and sexual risk behaviors between participants who self-completed questionnaires and those who received assistance.
• To identify demographic and behavioral factors associated with needing assistance in questionnaire completion.
• To assess the impact of assistance on the reporting of specific risk behaviors.

Main Methods:

• An annual cross-sectional survey of injecting drug users (IDUs) recruited from sentinel NSPs across Australia.
• Data collected via self-completed questionnaires, with assistance provided and recorded when necessary.
• Multivariate analyses used to compare risk behaviors based on questionnaire completion method.

Main Results:

• Out of 2,035 participants, 1,452 (71%) completed questionnaires without assistance.
• Assistance was independently associated with being male, speaking a language other than English at home, and last injecting heroin.
• Participants receiving assistance were less likely to report syringe reuse and sex work in the past month.

Conclusions:

• Self-completion of risk behavior questionnaires may enhance the accuracy of self-reports compared to interviewer-administered methods.
• NSPs can utilize self-completed questionnaires to gather more reliable data on injecting and sexual risk behaviors.
• Further research could explore optimal methods for questionnaire administration to diverse IDU populations.