Paper
Friday, 21 July 2006
This presentation is part of : Patient, Staff, and Family Education Initiatives
Senoritas and Demoiselles: Effect of a Single-Session Intervention on College-Aged Haitian Females' HIV Safer-Sex Knowledge
Sande Gracia Jones, PhD, ARNP, FAAN1, Paula Delpech, MSN, RN1, Margaret Hamilton, DNS, RN1, Mary Louise Jorda, MPH, RN1, Robert Malow, PhD2, and Rebecca Ranallo, MS3. (1) School of Nursing, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA, (2) School of Public Health, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA, (3) School of Policy & Management, Criminal Justice, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA
Learning Objective #1: describe the Office on Women's Health HIV Prevention initiative for college-aged minority women
Learning Objective #2: discuss the effect of a single-session HIV prevention program on HIV knowledge of college-aged Haitian women
SENORITAS (Student Education Needed In Order to Reduce Infection and Transmission of AIDS/HIV and STDs) is an innovative HIV prevention program (Jones, 2004) funded by the Office on Women’s Health as part of OWH’s Prevention of HIV/AIDS/STDs among Young Women Attending Minority Institutions initiative. PURPOSE: Determine effect of attending the SENORITAS single-session HIV prevention program on college-aged Haitian females’ HIV knowledge. METHOD: Study design was based on Fisher & Fisher’s (1994) Information- Motivation- Behavioral skills (IMB) model of AIDS-preventive behavior. Instruments used were Fisher, Fisher, Misovich and Bryan’s (2002) HIV-related subscales; reported reliability with college-aged students was 0.75 to 0.87 (Misovich, Fisher & Fisher, 1998). After IRB approval, senior BSN students enrolled in a Community Health course volunteered to serve as HIV Prevention Peer Educators for the SENORITAS project. Haitian BSN students arranged with a Haitian community technical school to teach the SENORITAS program during an evening class. Twenty-six Haitian female students aged 18-25 attended the session. During interactive parts of the program the young Haitian women revealed various misperceptions about HIV transmission and treatment.  Program participants completed instruments at the start of the session, and repeated the HIV knowledge subscale at the end of the session. The senior BSN students completed a group paper at the end of the semester on their project. FINDINGS: Participants had a significant increase in mean knowledge scores (from 12.50 to 18.50) pre-program to end of program (t =-4.721, df = 25, p =.01). The BSN students reported an increase in their confidence to teach HIV prevention to the community. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: The program had a positive effect on HIV prevention for both participants and nursing students. This may lead to safer sex practices by participants, and also stimulate community health leadership activities by minority nursing students in their future clinical practice.

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