El-Bassel, N. & Schilling, R.F. (1992). Public Health Reports, 107 (5), 500 - 504
Description of Intervention: Skills Building
The intervention was delivered in five 2-hour sessions§ with about ten women in each group. The intervention was led by experienced female drug counselors who had received an additional 20 hours of training.
Sessions 1-2: Information on AIDS transmission and prevention. Trainers used video, other visual presentations, and didactic exercises to enable participants to identify their own high-risk sexual behaviors and barriers to adopting safer sex practices.
Session 3: Condom use. Members discussed their negative associations with condoms, practiced condom skills, and role-played scenarios that involved asking their partners to use condoms.
Sessions 4-5: Assertiveness training, problem solving, and communication skills. Participants practiced and personalized these skills, first by role-playing in scripted scenarios, then by selecting scenarios that reflected their own life.
Incentives included modest payments for attending the sessions. |
Intervention Goal(s): To determine the effects of a small group intervention to reduce sexual risk behavior and HIV transmission by increasing AIDS knowledge, sexual negotiation skills, and safer sex practices.
Intervention Setting: Methadone maintenance clinics.
Population: Of the 84 female methadone patients who participated in the study, 36% were African American and 64% were Hispanic. The average age of the women was 35 years, and 90% were unemployed.
Comparison Condition: HIV/AIDS information only.
Behavioral Findings: Women who participated in the intervention significantly increased frequency of condom use with their partners compared with women in the comparison condition.
Contact:
Nabila El-Bassel, DSW
Columbia University School of Social Work
622 West 113th Street
New York, NY 10025
Phone: 212 854 5011
Fax: 212 854 8549
E-mail: ne5@columbia.edu
§Information obtained from related reports or author.
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AIDS Education in Jail
This study meets CDC's HIV/AIDS Prevention Research Synthesis project criteria for relevance and methodological rigor and also has the positive and significant behavioral/health findings required for the Compendium. Date added 1/99
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