"Until People Start Dying in Droves, No Actions Will Be Taken": Perception and Experience of HIV-Preventive Measures among People Who Inject Drugs in North-Western Russia
Background The HIV epidemic among people who inject drugs (PWID) in Russia continues to spread. This exploratory study examines how HIV-prevention measures are perceived and experienced by PWID in the northwestern region of Russia. Methods Purposive sampling was used to obtain a variety of cases tha...
Published in: | Harm Reduction Journal |
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Main Authors: | , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
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BioMed Central
2018
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Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10642/5845 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-017-0162-1 |
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fthsosloakersoda:oai:oda.oslomet.no:10642/5845 |
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Open Polar |
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OsloMet (Oslo Metropolitan University): ODA (Open Digital Archive) |
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fthsosloakersoda |
language |
English |
topic |
HIV prevention People who inject drugs (PWID) Qualitative research Russia |
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HIV prevention People who inject drugs (PWID) Qualitative research Russia Meylakhs, Peter Aasland, Aadne Grønningsæter, Arne Backer "Until People Start Dying in Droves, No Actions Will Be Taken": Perception and Experience of HIV-Preventive Measures among People Who Inject Drugs in North-Western Russia |
topic_facet |
HIV prevention People who inject drugs (PWID) Qualitative research Russia |
description |
Background The HIV epidemic among people who inject drugs (PWID) in Russia continues to spread. This exploratory study examines how HIV-prevention measures are perceived and experienced by PWID in the northwestern region of Russia. Methods Purposive sampling was used to obtain a variety of cases that could reflect possible differences in perception and experience of HIV-prevention efforts. We conducted 22 semi-structured interviews with PWID residing in the Arkhangelsk and St. Petersburg regions. Results The main sources of prevention information on HIV for PWID were media campaigns directed to the general population. These campaigns were effective with regard to communicating general knowledge on HIV but were ineffective in terms of risk behavior change. The subjects generally had trust in medical professionals and their advice but did not follow prevention recommendations. Most informants had no or very little prior contact with harm reduction services. On the level of attitudes towards HIV prevention efforts, we discovered three types of fatalism among PWID: “personal fatalism” - uselessness of HIV prevention efforts, if one uses drugs; “prevention-related fatalism” - prevention programs are low effective, because people do not pay attention to them before they get infected; “state-related fatalism” – the lack of belief that the state is concerned with HIV prevention issues. Despite this fatalism the participants opined that NGOs would do a better job than the state as they are “really working” with risk groups. Conclusions As HIV prevention campaigns targeted at the general population and prevention advice received from medical professionals are not sufficiently effective for PWID in terms of risk behavior change, prevention programs, such as community-based and peer-based interventions specifically tailored to the needs of PWID are needed, which can be achieved by a large expansion of harm reduction services in the region. Personal communication should be a crucial element in such interventions in addition to harm reduction materials provision. Training programs, peer outreach, and culture-change interventions which try to alter widespread fatalistic norms or attitudes towards their health are especially needed, since this study indicates that fatalism is a major barrier for behavior change. Norges forskningsråd 220615 publishedVersion |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Meylakhs, Peter Aasland, Aadne Grønningsæter, Arne Backer |
author_facet |
Meylakhs, Peter Aasland, Aadne Grønningsæter, Arne Backer |
author_sort |
Meylakhs, Peter |
title |
"Until People Start Dying in Droves, No Actions Will Be Taken": Perception and Experience of HIV-Preventive Measures among People Who Inject Drugs in North-Western Russia |
title_short |
"Until People Start Dying in Droves, No Actions Will Be Taken": Perception and Experience of HIV-Preventive Measures among People Who Inject Drugs in North-Western Russia |
title_full |
"Until People Start Dying in Droves, No Actions Will Be Taken": Perception and Experience of HIV-Preventive Measures among People Who Inject Drugs in North-Western Russia |
title_fullStr |
"Until People Start Dying in Droves, No Actions Will Be Taken": Perception and Experience of HIV-Preventive Measures among People Who Inject Drugs in North-Western Russia |
title_full_unstemmed |
"Until People Start Dying in Droves, No Actions Will Be Taken": Perception and Experience of HIV-Preventive Measures among People Who Inject Drugs in North-Western Russia |
title_sort |
"until people start dying in droves, no actions will be taken": perception and experience of hiv-preventive measures among people who inject drugs in north-western russia |
publisher |
BioMed Central |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/10642/5845 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-017-0162-1 |
genre |
Arkhangelsk North-Western Russia |
genre_facet |
Arkhangelsk North-Western Russia |
op_source |
Harm Reduction Journal |
op_relation |
https://harmreductionjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12954-017-0162-1 Norges forskningsråd: 220615 Meylakhs P, Aasland Aa, Grønningsæter AB. "Until People Start Dying in Droves, No Actions Will Be Taken": Perception and Experience of HIV-Preventive Measures among People Who Inject Drugs in North-Western Russia. Harm Reduction Journal. 2017;14(1) urn:issn:1477-7517 https://hdl.handle.net/10642/5845 http://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-017-0162-1 cristin:1473235 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC0 PDM CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-017-0162-1 |
container_title |
Harm Reduction Journal |
container_volume |
14 |
container_issue |
1 |
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1766354651153694720 |
spelling |
fthsosloakersoda:oai:oda.oslomet.no:10642/5845 2023-05-15T15:24:06+02:00 "Until People Start Dying in Droves, No Actions Will Be Taken": Perception and Experience of HIV-Preventive Measures among People Who Inject Drugs in North-Western Russia Meylakhs, Peter Aasland, Aadne Grønningsæter, Arne Backer 2018-01-26T10:18:12Z application/pdf https://hdl.handle.net/10642/5845 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-017-0162-1 en eng BioMed Central https://harmreductionjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12954-017-0162-1 Norges forskningsråd: 220615 Meylakhs P, Aasland Aa, Grønningsæter AB. "Until People Start Dying in Droves, No Actions Will Be Taken": Perception and Experience of HIV-Preventive Measures among People Who Inject Drugs in North-Western Russia. Harm Reduction Journal. 2017;14(1) urn:issn:1477-7517 https://hdl.handle.net/10642/5845 http://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-017-0162-1 cristin:1473235 © The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC0 PDM CC-BY Harm Reduction Journal HIV prevention People who inject drugs (PWID) Qualitative research Russia Journal article Peer reviewed 2018 fthsosloakersoda https://doi.org/10.1186/s12954-017-0162-1 2021-10-11T16:53:39Z Background The HIV epidemic among people who inject drugs (PWID) in Russia continues to spread. This exploratory study examines how HIV-prevention measures are perceived and experienced by PWID in the northwestern region of Russia. Methods Purposive sampling was used to obtain a variety of cases that could reflect possible differences in perception and experience of HIV-prevention efforts. We conducted 22 semi-structured interviews with PWID residing in the Arkhangelsk and St. Petersburg regions. Results The main sources of prevention information on HIV for PWID were media campaigns directed to the general population. These campaigns were effective with regard to communicating general knowledge on HIV but were ineffective in terms of risk behavior change. The subjects generally had trust in medical professionals and their advice but did not follow prevention recommendations. Most informants had no or very little prior contact with harm reduction services. On the level of attitudes towards HIV prevention efforts, we discovered three types of fatalism among PWID: “personal fatalism” - uselessness of HIV prevention efforts, if one uses drugs; “prevention-related fatalism” - prevention programs are low effective, because people do not pay attention to them before they get infected; “state-related fatalism” – the lack of belief that the state is concerned with HIV prevention issues. Despite this fatalism the participants opined that NGOs would do a better job than the state as they are “really working” with risk groups. Conclusions As HIV prevention campaigns targeted at the general population and prevention advice received from medical professionals are not sufficiently effective for PWID in terms of risk behavior change, prevention programs, such as community-based and peer-based interventions specifically tailored to the needs of PWID are needed, which can be achieved by a large expansion of harm reduction services in the region. Personal communication should be a crucial element in such interventions in addition to harm reduction materials provision. Training programs, peer outreach, and culture-change interventions which try to alter widespread fatalistic norms or attitudes towards their health are especially needed, since this study indicates that fatalism is a major barrier for behavior change. Norges forskningsråd 220615 publishedVersion Article in Journal/Newspaper Arkhangelsk North-Western Russia OsloMet (Oslo Metropolitan University): ODA (Open Digital Archive) Harm Reduction Journal 14 1 |