Original Article STI PROFILE AND TREATMENT SEEKING BEHAVIOUR OF STREET CHILDREN IN SURAT

ABSTRACT This cross-sectional study among 326 street children using a pre-tested interview schedule reveals that 50.5% of children with a history of having had sex, had a history suggestive of STI infections during the past six months with the commonest symptom was a painless single ulcer (29.1%). All of them had sought treatment, albeit irregular and incomplete, even in personally supervised conditions, owing to reasons as external relief from symptoms with significantly improved medical care behaviours consequent to repeatedly cajoling. was sometimes construed as cure by the street children, for instance after one or two injections, these children get so much relief that they feel that they have been cured and then they do not come for the remaining treatment