Metrics details. This paper reports on the feasibility and initial efficacy of a culturally sensitive, comprehensive women-centered substance use intervention for women who inject drugs in Georgia in terms of the primary and secondary sex risk outcomes. The hypothesis under examination was that, relative to case management participants, participants in a culturally sensitive, comprehensive women-specific and -centered intervention would, on average, show significant decreases in pastday frequency of unprotected sex, unprotected sex at the last sexual encounter, and increases in condom use and safer sex actions.
Participants were assessed at baseline, post-treatment, and 3 months following treatment enrollment. Unprotected sex at the last encounter and Condom Use action scores were nonsignificant. Women who inject drugs in Georgia are engaging in risky sexual practices, and are in need of an intervention that addresses these risky behaviors.
Reasons for the failure to find differences between a culturally sensitive, comprehensive women-centered intervention and case management tailored to the needs of women who inject drugs in Georgia may have been the result of inadequate power to detect an effect in a sample whose drug use was not as serious as warranted by the intervention. Substance use disorders are a worldwide problem [ 1 ]. International guidelines exist for the treatment of opioid use disorder, [ 2 ] although the United States has witnessed the preponderant amount of research related to the treatment of opioid use disorder.
Moreover, although the World Health Organization has focused attention on the treatment of pregnant women with substance use disorders [ 3 ], little attention has been paid to the development of women-centered treatment for substance use disorders in Georgia, despite documentation of the unique needs of women in substance use treatment [ 4 ], and research in the US that has shown that treatments that focus on the issues more commonly found in women with substance use disorders may be more efficacious [ 5 — 7 ].
Of particular note in regard to the present paper is the development of a comprehensive, women-centered intervention for women who inject drugs in Georgia [ 15 ]. Women who inject drugs in Georgia encounter continuing stigma and discrimination. Women have few opportunities to receive publicly funded substance use treatment services in Georgia. If available, substance use treatment services in Georgia have been designed to serve male beneficiaries, and fail to address the unique needs and challenges that women who inject drugs face in their daily lives.
