Abstract
Objectives: 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.
Key Words: sex workers; health care; Africa; Côte d'Ivoire
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Selected References
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