title: Where do sex workers go for health care? A community based study in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Tropical Medicine, Belgium. bbv1@cdc.gov
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Vuylsteke
authors.forename: P D
authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: Ghys
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Mah-bi
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Konan
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Traoré
authors.forename: S Z
authors.initials: SZ
authors.lastname: Wiktor
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Laga
mesh_terms: 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*