An examination of indirect risk of exposure to HIV among wives of substance-abusing men

The purpose of the present investigation was to explore risk and preventive behaviors for potential HIV exposure among 362 married drug-abusing men entering outpatient treatment and their wives. During the year before entering treatment, 144 husbands (40%) reported they had engaged in sexual or drug use behaviors that placed them at high risk for HIV exposure. Nearly all of the wives of these husbands (n = 138, 96 /0) reported they had sexual intercourse with their spouses during this same time period. Among these sexually active couples, 108 of the wives (78%) reported that condoms were not regularly used when they had intercourse with their spouses, thus placing them at high risk for indirect exposure to HIV. Seventy-seven (71%) of these 108 wives reported they were not aware their husbands had engaged in high risk behaviors and thus were unknowingly placed at high risk for indirect exposure to HIV. Among those couples with husbands who had engaged in a high risk behavior, longer marriages, a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder for husbands, and wives' lack of knowledge of husbands' high risk behaviors were uniquely associated with an increased likelihood of wives being placed at high risk for indirect exposure to HIV. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.