Paper
Thursday, July 22, 2004
This presentation is part of : Girls/Women and HIV/AIDS
Motivationally Based HIV Prevention Intervention for Adolescent Girls
Dianne Morrison-Beedy, RN, PhD, WHNP, Center for High-Risk Children and Youth, University of Rochester School of Nursing, Rochester, NY, USA and Michael P. Carey, PhD, Dept of Psychology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA.
Learning Objective #1: Describe current evidence-based HIV prevention interventions for adolescent girls
Learning Objective #2: Identify important information, motivation, and behavioral skill antecedents to HIV behavioral risk reduction
Objective: Despite the increasing incidence of HIV in adolescent girls, only one RCT assessing behavioral outcomes has evaluated the efficacy of a gender-specific, small group HIV-risk reduction intervention for adolescent females. The purpose of this study was to address this gap in HIV-prevention science by pilot testing a small-group, HIV prevention intervention for sexually active adolescent girls.

Design: Randomized pre-test post-test design.

Sample, Setting, Years: In 2001, 62 girls ages 15-19, half minority, were recruited from an urban family planning center in Central New York State.

Concept/Variables: This theoretically-driven intervention assessed antecedents to behavioral change (i.e., information, motivation, behavioral skills [IMB]) as well as sexual risk behaviors and substance use.

Methods: Participants were randomized to an HIV-prevention intervention or a structurally-equivalent comparison condition. Both were manualized, 4 two-hour sessions facilitated by trained female interventionists. Sessions included IMB components focusing on (a) HIV or (b) health promotion topics. The girls were assessed pre-intervention and three months after completion of the sessions.

Findings: At post-test girls in the HIV group increased their knowledge, intentions to engage in safer sex, confidence in condoms use, and decreased their perceived disadvantages of condom use. They also had lower rates of most risk behaviors relative to girls in the comparison group.Medium to large effect sizes were identified on information, motivation, and behavioral skills variables. Effect sizes ranged from .3 to .5 on vaginal sex without a condom, receiving and giving oral sex, and the use of alcohol and drugs before sex.

Conclusion: These results provide support for the hypothesis that a small-group, gender-specific IMB-based intervention leads to reductions in sexual risk behavior in adolescent girls.

Implications: Compared to prior studies, an IMB-based intervention for girls contributed to notable behavioral effect sizes. A full-scale longitudinal evaluation is underway that uses self-report and biological outcomes.

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