Sexual health risk among dance drug users: cross-sectional comparisons with nationally representative data

To describe the sexual behaviour and related risk of a sample of dance drug users and compare this with data from the UK National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles 2000 survey.

Cross-sectional purposive sampling using both self-completion postal and web-based questionnaires.

This sample of dance drug users are more sexually active and have more concurrent partners than the general population. Rates of anal or vaginal sex within the last year without condom use are high and of concern (men 80 per cent; women 90 per cent). These dance drug users appear also to have higher lifetime prevalence of sexually transmitted infections than the general population and are also more likely to have ever attended a sexual health clinic.

Clubbing and dance drug use, as part of a socially active lifestyle, is associated with elevated and pronounced sexual health risk. Future epidemiological studies of sexual health risk should incorporate investigation of both clubbing and recreational drug use in order to confirm the representativeness of these observations. Clubbers should be considered a target for dedicated sexual health promotion interventions, which may also be combined with interventions targeting drug and alcohol use.