Where do sex workers go for health care? A community based study in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
OBJECTIVE
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.
Vuylsteke
B
B
Institute of Tropical Medicine, Belgium. bbv1@cdc.gov
Ghys
P D
PD
Mah-bi
G
G
Konan
Y
Y
Traoré
M
M
Wiktor
S Z
SZ
Laga
M
M
D000328:Adult; D000354:Africa, Western; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods; D011477:Sex Work / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012749:Sexually Transmitted Diseases / Q000628:therapy*