A COVID-19 Survey among People Who Use Drugs in Norway

to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, adherence to COVID-19 recommendations and vaccination against COVID-19 have been important. Among people who use drugs (PWUD), little is known regarding compliance towards COVID-19 recommendations, COVID-19 testing, or attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination. We aimed to examine these issues in a sample of PWUD.

a cross-sectional study was conducted between January and March 2021. Through users' organizations and different low-threshold services for substance users, we recruited former drug users and professionals to include participants and perform the interviews. Participants completed an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Any person above 16 years of age who used substances were recruited.

477 Norwegian PWUD participated in the study. The mean age was 43.8 (SD 12.8) years and 77% were males. Thirty-four percent had injected drugs the past four weeks. Alcohol (41%) and cannabis (41%) were the most common drugs used the past four weeks, followed by tranquilizers (37%), central stimulants (35%) and opioids (30%). The majority (90%) had washed their hands frequently, used alcohol sanitizer during the past two weeks, had used face masks, kept one-meter distance to other people and stayed at home if feeling unwell. Fifty-four percent had been COVID-19 tested. More than half the sample (58%) had positive attitudes to COVID-19 vaccination, while 26% were fairly or very unlikely to accept vaccination. Those older (OR = 0.96, 95% CI 0.94; 0.98) and using face masks (OR = 0.49, 95% CI 0.30; 0.79) were more likely to have positive attitudes towards vaccination, while those reporting low life-satisfaction (OR = 3.86, 95% CI 1.43; 10.40), using opioids (OR = 2.97, 95% CI 1.43; 6.18) or almost never staying at home when feeling unwell (OR = 2.76, 95% 1.39; 5.45) expressed more negative attitudes towards vaccination.

there was generally a high compliance towards COVID-19 recommendations, but one quarter of the sample was sceptical towards COVID-19 vaccination. This indicates a need for targeted and tailored information and well-designed vaccination roll-out programs to reach all PWUD.