Thapa Subash, Thapa Deependra Kaji, Buve Anne, Hannes Karin, Nepal Chiranjibi, Mathei Catharina
Department of Public Health and Primary Care, KU Leuven, Kapucijnenvoer 33, 3000, Leuven, Belgium.
Department of Public Health, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nationalestraat 155, 2000, Antwerp, Belgium.
J Community Health. 2017 Apr;42(2):260-268. doi: 10.1007/s10900-016-0251-1.
Nepalese labor migrants and their wives are considered as at-risk populations for HIV infection. There may be a risk of HIV transmission from the labor migrant and their wives to the general population due to HIV-related risk behaviors, but so far empirical evidence to support this hypothesis is scarce. Therefore, this study was conducted to compare HIV-related risk behaviors between labor migrants, their wives, and males and females from the general population in the far-western region of Nepal. This was a cross-sectional study, in which structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with 261 male labor migrants, 262 wives of labor migrants, 123 males and 122 females from the general population. We found that the proportion of the labor migrants and their wives reporting having had extramarital sex in the previous year did not differ significantly with the males (11.9 vs. 13.4 %, p value 0.752) and females (2.0 vs. 1.7 %, p value 0.127) from the general population. However, the labor migrants compared with the males from the general population were 1.51 times and the wives of labor migrants compared with the females from the general population were 2.37 times more likely to have been tested for HIV. Both the males from the general population and the labor migrants are equally engaged in unprotected extramarital sex. Therefore, it is recommended that the prevention programs, including access to condoms and HIV testing, should be scaled up targeting a broader range of individuals in the far-western region of Nepal.
尼泊尔劳务移民及其妻子被视为艾滋病毒感染的高危人群。由于与艾滋病毒相关的风险行为，劳务移民及其妻子可能存在将艾滋病毒传播给普通人群的风险，但迄今为止，支持这一假设的实证证据很少。因此，本研究旨在比较尼泊尔远西部地区劳务移民、他们的妻子以及普通人群中的男性和女性之间与艾滋病毒相关的风险行为。这是一项横断面研究，对261名男性劳务移民、262名劳务移民的妻子、123名普通男性和122名普通女性进行了结构化面对面访谈。我们发现，劳务移民及其妻子报告前一年有过婚外性行为的比例与普通人群中的男性（11.9% 对13.4%，p值0.752）和女性（2.0% 对1.7%，p值0.127）相比没有显著差异。然而，与普通人群中的男性相比，劳务移民进行艾滋病毒检测的可能性高1.51倍，与普通人群中的女性相比，劳务移民的妻子进行艾滋病毒检测的可能性高2.37倍。普通人群中的男性和劳务移民进行无保护婚外性行为的情况相当。因此，建议扩大预防项目，包括提供避孕套和艾滋病毒检测，以覆盖尼泊尔远西部地区更广泛的人群。
