Background: Commercial sex workers and clientsare important core populations in the transmission ofsexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and human im-munodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Research on thefrequency and determinants of condom use in com-mercial sex workers and their clients is important inincreasing condom use and reduction of the STD/HIV.Burden. Objectives: To establish the frequency of and fac-tors related to intention to use condoms and actualcondom use in commercial sex contacts and to deter-mine the differences in condom use between sex work-ers and clients.Methods: Incarcerated commercial sex workers(ICSW) and male STD clinic attendees were recruitedinto a cross-sectional study to obtain data on the fre-quency and factors associated with intention to usecondoms and condom use in commercial sexual con-tacts with an interviewer-administered questionnaire.Consistent condom use in ICSWs and never usingcondoms in male STD clinic attendees were analyzedusing univariate and multivariate logistic regressionmodels. Results: The frequency of reported consistent in-tention to use condoms and reported actual condomuse was 62% and 50.6%, respectively among 158ICSWs. For male STD clinic attendees, the propor-tion of reported consistent intention to use condomsand reported actual condom use was 10% and 20.7%,respectively. The factors positively influencing theconsistent intention to use condoms were pregnancypreventing measures and the belief of condom efficacyin the prevention of STD/HIV, whereas the factor as-sociated with actually consistent condom use was preg-nancy-preventing measure in ICSWs. Factors associ-ated with no intention to use condoms were low income,low STD/HIV knowledge level and the frequency ofvisiting CSW. The latter factor was also associatedwith never using condoms in male STD clinicattendees. Conclusions: Consistent condom use during com-mercial sex contacts was low, especially in clients.Greater effort is needed in condom promotion programin order to raise the level of condom use in c
