Women at high risk of HIV infection from drug use.

The purpose of this project was to study women at high risk for contracting AIDS from intravenous drug use or from sexual contact with addicts. Characteristics of the population, differences between HIV+ and HIV- women, substance abuse in primary caretakers of this high risk population, and changes in drug use when learning of HIV status were investigated. Subjects were mothers at high risk for contracting HIV, whose children were referred to a pediatric AIDS clinic of a large urban hospital because of AIDS risk factors. HIV testing revealed that 27 women were HIV+ and 13 were HIV-. The most common source of infection reported by the HIV+ women was sexual contact (17 subjects), with the remainder reporting that they were unsure of the source or reported intravenous drug use as their source of infection. There were significant differences between HIV+ and HIV- mothers with regard to the presence and impact of substance abuse in their own primary caretakers before age 16. Substance abuse in the parents of subjects was apparently reflected in behaviors reflecting health risk in subsequent generations. Subjects did not report changes in AIDS risk behavior when informed of their own HIV status or that of their children.