Objectives: To identify the factors associated with cessation of injecting drug use in young street-based injecting drug users. Methods: Subjects were originally recruited from various street-based outreach programs and had to have reported injecting drugs within the prior 6 months at baseline or during follow-up, as well as having completed at least 2 follow-up questionnaires. Follow-up occurred from January 1995 to September 2000. Cessation of injecting drug use was defined as having reported no injection at 2 consecutive follow-up questionnaires, averaging at least one year in total. Incidence rates of cessation were calculated and stratified by duration of injection. Adjusted hazard ratios were calculated in order to identify independent predictors of cessation. Results: A total of 305 subjects met the inclusion criteria. Of those, 119 (39%) ceased injecting for approximately one year or more. The incidence of cessation was 32.6/100 person-years, but consistently declined as duration of time spent injecting increased. Independent predictors of IDU cessation were: having at least one parent born outside of Canada (HR=1.4; 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 1.1-1.7); injecting on a less than monthly or less than weekly basis on average within the last month (HR=6.6; 95% CI: 3.1-14.1 and HR=2.4; 95% CI: 1.1-5.5, respectively); injecting an average of two or fewer different types of drug within the last six months (HR=1.8; 95% CI: 0.9-3.5); and having been employed within the last six months (HR=1.7; 95% CI: 1.1-2.7). Independent predictors of not stopping injecting drugs were: homelessness within the last six months (HR=0.6; 95% CI: 0.4-1.0); and having attended a needle exchange program within the last six months (HR=0.5; 95% CI: 0.3-0.8). Conclusion: Cessation of injecting drug use among youth is considerably higher in the first years of injecting. Young IDUs with non-Canadian family backgrounds, as well as those who inject less frequently, inject fewer different types of drugs, and have a more stable lifestyle tend to be more likely to stop injecting drugs for a period of one year.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.19415 |
| Date | January 2003 |
| Creators | Steensma, Colin |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002009087, Theses scanned by McGill Library. |
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