Addicts with chronic hepatitis C: Difficult to reach, manage or treat?

Table 1 Main baseline characteristics of 162 hepatitis C antibody+ illicit drug users selected by physicians operating in six Territorial Addiction Service in the District of Brescia and comparison with 39 hepatitis C antibody+ illicit drug users accepting antiviral therapy n (%)

Patient characteristics	Selected by SerT (n = 162)	Accepting therapy (n = 39)	P value
Male gender	135 (83)	27 (69)	0.8152
Age, yr, mean ± SD	38 ± 7	39 ± 6	0.8888
Spoken language: Italian	152 (94)	33 (85)	0.0912
Place of birth			0.1502
Italy	147 (91)	32 (82)
EU	5 (3)	2 (5)
Non-EU	10 (6)	5 (13)
Level of education	(n = 151)		0.8320
≤ 8 yr of school	118 (79)	30 (77)
High school diploma	32 (21)	8 (21)
University degree	1 (0)	1 (2)
	(n = 149)		1.0000
Unemployed	49 (33)	13 (33)
Chronic associated conditions	41 (25)	11 (28)	0.6888
Cardiovascular	5 (3)	2 (5)
Respiratory	4 (2)	1 (3)
Allergic	2 (1)	1 (3)
Psychiatric	19 (12)	3 (8)

SerT: Territorial Addiction Service.