A European Safer Injecting Drug use Education Research

ended

In order to reduce injection-related complications in people who inject drugs (PWID), an interventional research (ANRS-AERLI) evaluating a community-based individually-tailored education to safer injection was designed in France. This intervention provided in harm reduction programs showing a significant reduction in unsafe HIV/HCV transmission practices and local complications at the injection site has been validated in the French context. The main objective of this project is to transfer this Individually-Tailored Support and Education for Safer Injection (ITSESI) intervention towards PWID at a European level using 4 countries (Bulgaria, Greece, Portugal and Romania) in order to reduce HIV-HCV risk transmission. This intervention consists in providing face-to-face educational session on injecting practices and giving information about HIV-HCV prevention and care among difficult-to-reach populations of PWID. The project will use mixed methods and implementation science. The first exploratory step will use qualitative interviews and other available data in each country. The second step will consist in implementing the intervention through a training process and evaluating the ITSESI intervention to PWID in the selected sites. The evaluation will be based on a quantitative study conducted in a sample of 300 PWID interviewed at baseline and at 6 months and a qualitative study using focus groups and semi-structured interviews to participants to investigate the possible difficulties related to this educational intervention. The third step will consist in drafting, promoting and disseminating all the tools necessary to transfer the ITSESI intervention at a European level. Our findings should: 1) help understanding each local context to adapt the intervention; 2) assess the feasibility and the effectiveness of ITSESI in different contexts; 3) promote and disseminate tools and training to implement the intervention at a European level.