Resumen

Background: North Spain's first Drug Consumption Room (DCR) was opened in Bilbao on November 25, 2003. Similar facilities exist in a number of other cities in Europe, North America and Australia. Recently, some of them have already carried out the evaluation of their impact (Vancouver and Sydney). In 2009, Médicos del Mundo has accomplished the systematization and evaluation of datas collected and activities carried out in its Drug Consumption Room, in order to describe the evolution of user's socio-demographic and sanitary profile, as well as drug consumption patterns. Methods: Cross sectional study carried out by analyzing social and sanitary records collected between November 2003 and August 2009. This is a descriptive study, carried out to organize the data: in the case of qualitative variables by absolute (n) or relative (%) frequency; in case of quantitative variables by measures of position (average and median) and dispersion (standard deviation). Results: Throughout the period of study, the percentage of users reporting HIV infection has been declining both in men (from 28.5% in 2004 to 18.3% in 2008) and women (from 54.4% in 2004 to 16.3% in 2008). It is noteworthy that women show the highest percentage of HIV infection among users, as well as highest reduction in HIV infection percentages Conclusion: The study has provided evidence about the effectiveness of Drug Consumption Room in order to reduce VIH incidence among drug users, since free access to sterile syringes is provided. Also, risk behaviors have decreased thanks to educational interventions (more than 18.000 in the period of study). (Resumen de los autores)