Sexual behavior and factors relevant to condom practices among female sex workers

Objective To understand the sexual behavior and factors relevant to condom practices among female sex workers(FSWs) for the development of STD/AIDS control strategies.Methods All FSWs were recruited in a town in the middle part of Guangdong province and face-to-face interviews were carried out using a quantitative questionnaire to investigate HIV/AIDS related knowledge,attitude and behavior and sexual behavior and factors relevant to condom practices among them.Results 139 FSWs were mainly from beauty parlors,massage parlors and lets.The average age was(21.0±4.7).91.5% of them were under 9 years education.The average age of the first sexual intercourse and engaged in commercial sex were 18 and 20 respectively.The average number of client in the last week was 4.86.2% of them used condom every time during commercial sexual intercourse but only 23.2% used correctly.The main factors contributing to unprotected sex included client refusal and frequent visitors.Logistic regression analyze showed that education level was independently associated with condom use among FSWs(OR=14.519,P0.01).Conclusion Intervention strategies should be tailored to respond the problem of low age engaged in commercial sex,high frequency of commercial sexual practices and high percentage of incorrect condom use among FSWs and to promote 100% condom use in commercial sex.