摘要：We asked persons who inject drugs questions about HCV, including past testing and diagnosis followed by HCV testing. Of 540 participants, 145 (27%) were anti-HCV positive, but of those who were positive, only 46 (32%) knew about their infection. Asking about previous HCV testing results yielded better results than did asking about prior HCV diagnosis. Factors associated with knowing about HCV infection included older age, HIV testing, and drug treatment. Comprehensive approaches to educating and screening this population for HCV need implementation. HCV causes chronic infection in about 75% to 85% of infected persons, potentially leading to cirrhosis and liver cancer. 1 Currently in the United States, chronic HCV infection affects an estimated 2.7 million persons. 2 Injection drug use is the leading risk factor for infection. 3,4 Because self-report of HCV infection might be used to make decisions on who to screen, the limitations of self-report need to be better understood. Past studies on the limitations of self-reported HCV infection have generally described poor agreement between actual and perceived HCV serostatus. 5,6 In persons with HCV infection, behavioral counseling can be provided to reduce disease progression (alcohol abstinence) and to reduce HCV transmission (sharing injection equipment). 7 We investigated the sensitivity and specificity of perceived compared with actual HCV serostatus and assessed whether awareness of HCV infection is associated with differences in risk behaviors among HCV-positive persons who inject drugs (PWID).
