Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies Program, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
British Columbia Centre on Substance Use, Vancouver, Canada.
Drug Alcohol Rev. 2022 Jul;41(5):1062-1070. doi: 10.1111/dar.13473. Epub 2022 May 16.
Those requiring help injecting are at an elevated risk of injection-related injury and blood-borne infections and are thus a priority group for harm reduction programs. As supervised consumption services (SCS) are scaled-up across Canada, information on those who require help injecting is necessary to inform equitable service uptake. We characterised the sociodemographic, structural and drug use correlates of needing help injecting among a cohort of people who inject drugs in Toronto, Canada.
A cross-sectional baseline survey was administered between November 2018 and March 2020. Unadjusted and multivariable logistic regression models examined associations with requiring help injecting in the past 6 months. A gender-stratified sub-analysis described characteristics of receiving help among those requiring it.
Of 701 participants (31.0% cisgender women), 294 (41.9%) needed recent help injecting. In unadjusted analyses, being a racialised, non-Indigenous person (odds ratio [OR] 1.79, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.13-2.86) or a cisgender woman (OR 1.72, 95% CI 1.24-2.39) were associated with needing help. In multivariable analyses, requiring assistance was associated with needing frequent help preparing drugs (adjusted OR [AOR] 9.52, 95% CI 4.78-21.28), fewer years since first injection (AOR for 1 year increase: 0.97, 95% CI 0.95-0.99) and injecting stimulants. Among those who required help, cisgender women reported needing assistance more often than cisgender men (P = 0.009).
Over two-fifths of the sample required help injecting; requiring assistance was associated with sociodemographic indicators and substance use-specific patterns. Findings highlight the need to scale-up educational resources for those who receive or provide help injecting, as well as SCS that accommodate onsite injection assistance.
需要他人帮助注射的人面临着更高的注射相关伤害和血源性病原体感染风险，因此是减少伤害计划的优先群体。随着加拿大各地监管吸食服务（SCS）的扩大，有必要了解那些需要帮助注射的人的信息，以便为公平服务提供信息。我们对加拿大多伦多的一组注射毒品者进行了一项队列研究，以确定需要帮助注射的人的社会人口统计学、结构和药物使用相关因素。
在 2018 年 11 月至 2020 年 3 月期间进行了一项横断面基线调查。未调整和多变量逻辑回归模型检查了过去 6 个月需要帮助注射的相关性。对需要帮助的人接受帮助的情况进行了性别分层的子分析。
在 701 名参与者（31.0%的跨性别女性）中，294 人（41.9%）最近需要帮助注射。在未调整的分析中，种族化的非原住民（比值比[OR]1.79，95%置信区间[CI]1.13-2.86）或跨性别女性（OR 1.72，95%CI 1.24-2.39）与需要帮助有关。在多变量分析中，需要协助与需要经常帮助准备药物（调整后的比值比[OR]9.52，95%CI 4.78-21.28）、首次注射后年限较短（每年增加的 OR：0.97，95%CI 0.95-0.99）和注射兴奋剂有关。在需要帮助的人中，跨性别女性比跨性别男性更经常需要帮助（P=0.009）。
超过五分之二的样本需要帮助注射；需要协助与社会人口统计学指标和特定于物质使用的模式有关。这些发现强调了需要为接受或提供帮助注射的人扩大教育资源，并扩大能够提供现场注射协助的 SCS。
