Prison health in transitional Albania

The information about prisoners' health in transitional countries including Albania is limited. The aim of our study was to assess the health status and its correlates among adult prisoners in Albania, a post-communist country in Southeast Europe.

This was a cross-sectional study conducted in 2013 including 401 prisoners in Albania [290 (72%) males and 111 (28%) females]. All participants were administered an anonymous and structured questionnaire including information on self-perceived health status, health-related problems, lifestyle factors (smoking, alcohol intake and drug use) and demographic and socioeconomic characteristics (age, sex, educational attainment and income level). Binary logistic regression was used to assess the association between self-reported health status and covariates.

Overall, 173 (43.1%) of prisoners included in this study reported a poor health status, with a clear predominance of the female gender (P < 0.01). Overall, 28.1% of prisoners reported the presence of at least one disease. The overall prevalence of smoking, excessive alcohol consumption and drug use were 59.1%, 34.9% and 10.2%, respectively. Upon multivariable-adjustment, poor self-perceived health status was positively associated with female gender (OR = 2.01, 95% CI = 1.41-2.96), smoking (OR = 1.58, 95% CI = 1.29-2.04), excessive alcohol consumption (OR = 1.71, 95% CI = 1.38-2.13) and the presence of diseases (OR = 1.86, 95% CI = 1.52-2.87).

This study provides important information about the health status among Albanian prisoners. There is an urgent need for Albania to make a significant progress in health services provision for prisoners, which constitute a particularly vulnerable population subgroup.