Accessibility to Health and Support Services by Injecting Drug Users

The study was undertaken to look into the existing health and support services for injecting drug users (IDUs) in Guwahati,Assam. It was carried out at a Drop in Centre on 34 current intravenous drug users.The study was primarily quantitative in nature with some in-depth interviews with the respondents, their families and a few service providers. The aim of the study was to get a glimpse of the existing health services and draw a relationship between the socio-economic,demographic conditions of IDUs and knowledge, accessibility and utilization of these services. Moreover attitude of other stakeholders as perceived by the IDUs themselves were also studied. An attempt was made to understand whether these factors promoted the accessibility to services or served as a barrier. The study revealed that the existing services were highly inadequate. Socio-economic and demographic factors influenced the IDUs access to and utilization of services. Responses were mixed as regards attitudes of family, peers and service providers The study thus provided an insight into the existing systems and paved way for strengthening the same.