The present study aims to investigate the perspective relations between HIV/AIDS and condom-related knowledge, condom use, history of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and predictive factors of condom use by female sex workers (FSW) who were sent to the Women Re-education Center (WRC) in Shenzhen, People's Republic of China. Seven hundred and one FSW were interviewed. Whereas respondents had attained certain accurate knowledge about the HIV transmission routes, misconceptions were still commonly reported. Level of condom related knowledge was not high. The prevalence of using condoms with clients was relatively low-15%- 22% reported not using condoms consistently. One of the major obstacles was 'Refusal by clients'. Significant predictive factors associated with consistency of condom use with clients were age, educational background, average number of client intakes per day, capacity in determining the use of condoms and past STD history. The respondents may have developed a false sense of safety by subjectively assessing whether their clients had a STD but they were unaware that HIV carriers may show no obvious symptoms at all. The data has confirmed the worries regarding the potential 'bridging effect' of HIV transmission as resulted by cross-border commercial sex-networking activities.

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The objective of the study was to establish a behavioural surveillance system (BSS) for sexually-related risk behaviours of the Hong Kong adult male general population. Benchmark data were obtained by interviewing 1,020 male respondents, age 18 to 60. The results showed that: (1) 14% of the respondents had engaged in commercial sex in the past six months, (2) 27% of the male commercial sex clients did not always use condoms when having sexual intercourse with commercial sex workers (CSWs), (3) 1.5% of the respondents had contracted sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the past six months, (4) 6.1% of respondents had only ever had sex with a man, (5) 0.8% of the respondents had practised unprotected anal intercourse with a man in a six-month period, (6) 4.4% of respondents practised sexually-related high risk behaviours, defined as unprotected sex with a CSW or unprotected anal intercourse with a man, and (7) 36.4% of those who engaged in commercial sex had not used condoms with their regular sex partners. Commercial sex was often practised outside Hong Kong, very commonly in Mainland China or Macau, and was often practised at multiple locations by the same client. Effective programmes have to be able to reduce the size of the at-risk population. This study together with future ones, will form the first BSS in Hong Kong for the general male population and will provide a relevant yardstick for programme evaluation.

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the relationships between Sense of Coherence (SoC), Coping Strategies and Quality of Life (QoL) of parents of children with autism in Malaysia.Method: Purposive sampling was used to recruit parents of children with autism from 3 Autism Centres run by NGOs. The parents were asked to complete a questionnaire.Results: The results of the study show that SoC and cognitive reframing are important factors that are associated with QoL.Conclusions: It is recommended that policy-makers and programmers at the Autism Centres conduct more training workshops for parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), so that their overall QoL can be improved.Limitations: Future studies could recruit more participants, especially parents at government centr