Public injecting and willingness to use a drug consumption room among needle exchange programme attendees in the UK.

This study examines the prevalence of public injecting and willingness to use drug consumption rooms (DCRs) among UK needle exchange programme (NEP) attendees. Three hundred and one injecting drug users (IDUs) were surveyed using a brief questionnaire across five NEPs in London and Leeds between April and June 2005. Injection in a public place in the past week was reported by 55% of the sample and 84% reported willingness to use a DCR if it was available. Public injecting was positively associated with insecure housing (AOR=2.1, CI 1.2-3.5, p=0.009), unsafe needle and syringe disposal in the past month (AOR=3.6, CI 1.9-6.9, p<0.001) and willingness to use DCR (AOR=2.7, CI 1.3-5.4, p=0.006). Public injecting was negatively associated with being aged more than 30 years (AOR=0.4, CI 0.3-0.7, p=0.003) and living in close proximity (within 0.5 miles/0.8 km) of the usual place of drug purchase (AOR=0.6, CI 0.3-0.9, p=0.02). Our findings suggest that recent public injecting is prevalent among UK NEP attendees and the majority would be willing to use DCRs if available. It is also probable that if such services were located close to key drug markets they would engage vulnerable IDU sub-populations such as young people and the insecurely housed and reduce their levels of public injecting and unsafe needle/syringe disposal. Targeted pilot implementation of DCRs in the UK is recommended.