Quantitative and Qualitative Methods to Assess Behavioral Change Among Injection Drug Users

SUMMARY

The risk injecting drug users (IDUs) have for contracting the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) led to governmental requests for interventions to prevent its spread. At the same time there was an urgent need to evaluate the effectiveness of these proposed interventions. We believe that both quantitative and qualitative research methods should be employed in this effort. In this paper we discuss the differences between the two approaches, how they can complement one another, and present findings derived from their joint application to a particular risk behavior, needle sharing. Despite behavioral changes in a number of high risk activities, significant reductions in borrowing syringes were not reported by participants in structured interviews. Evidence obtained through participant observation and open-ended interviews indicated Colorado's paraphernalia law may have played a major role in encouraging this behavior.