sexual risk behaviors

gmail.com Background:There is a large controversy in the literature about the inter-relations between perceived risk, knowledge, and risk behavior in different settings, and people at HIV risk are not an exception. Aim:To assess additive and multiplicative effect of perceived HIV risk and HIV knowledge on sexual risk behavior of Injecting Drug Users (IDUs). Method: We enrolled 162 street based IDUs to this analysis. Data came from a national survey of IDUs in Iran, with a cross sectional design. Socio-demographics (employment, education, marital status), HIV knowledge, perceived HIV risk, and four different sexual risk behavior were registered. In the first step, using spearman test, the association of HIV knowledge and risk behavior were tested, then possible moderating effect of perceived HIV risk on this association was determined. Results: Although among IDUs with low perceived HIV risk, HIV knowledge was negatively associated with sexual risk behavior (P <0.05 for all), this association was not signifi-cant among IDUs with high perceived HIV risk (P>0.05 for all). Thus perceived HIV ris