|
Self-monitoring helps reduce high-risk behavior among HIV-positive people
July 09, 2007There are many effective, albeit expensive, intervention programs aimed at encouraging HIV-positive people to practice less risky behavior. But a new UCLA AIDS Institute study has found that self-monitoring by these patients is not only an effective strategy but is inexpensive and easy to implement as well.
By simply having patients answer a series of questions about their sexual behavior while waiting for regularly scheduled medical examinations, researchers found that people living with HIV took steps to change their behavior. The study is published in the July issue of the journal AIDS Care.
The questions brought up issues patients often had not considered, said lead author Marguerita Lightfoot, associate research psychologist at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA.
"In other studies, we often heard participants say, 'Oh, I never really thought about my behavior like that' when they completed study assessments," she said. "It appeared that by completing the self-assessments, people reflected on their own behavior and changed their behavior. It's very easy to implement and very cost effective."
The researchers surveyed 365 people living with HIV recruited from community medical clinics and health maintenance organizations. General requirements were that they be at least 18 years old, speak English, provide written informed consent, be free of severe neuropsychological impairments and psychosis, and not be involved in any other HIV behavioral intervention study.
Participants ranged in age from 19 to 69, with a median age of 41. Ninety-two percent were male, 70 percent were gay and 13 percent were bisexual. More than half were ethnic minorities, with African Americans accounting for 21 percent, Latinos 31 percent and other non-whites 7 percent. Eighty-eight percent were high school graduates, and 62 percent had completed at least one year of college. Seventy-seven percent received services from a non-HMO clinic.
While waiting for regularly scheduled examinations, participants were taken to a private room where they answered questions about their sexual behavior on laptop computers set up for that purpose. Questions addressed the number of participants' sexual partners, the HIV status of each partner and the number of sexual acts performed with them, and the number of times that condoms were used.
Some of the study participants completed more than four self-assessments.
Researchers found that the more self-assessments the patients completed, the higher the odds were that they would use condoms when having sex with HIV-negative partners or partners whose HIV status was unknown. Researchers also found that sexual activity tended to decrease over time as the number of self-assessments increased.
Also, as patients completed more assessments, they became increasingly aware of their risk of contracting other sexually transmitted diseases and their negative feelings about changing risky sexual behavior decreased. But neither the number of sex partners nor the fraction of protected acts with all partners showed any significant changes over time with increases in the number of self-assessments.
"Consequently, it appears that allowing PLH (people living with HIV) to reflect on their sexual behavior influences their subsequent decisions regarding sexual behavior," the researchers wrote. "It is likely that by having the patients acknowledge and report, in a nonconfrontive and nonjudgmental manner, those behaviors that could result in transmission of HIV, their motivation to reduce HIV-transmission-related behavior increased and their attitudes became more conducive to reducing risk behaviors.
"Consequently," they continued, "self-assessments appear to be a promising avenue for promoting behavior change in a setting which PLH regularly interface."
University of California - Los Angeles
"In other studies, we often heard participants say, 'Oh, I never really thought about my behavior like that' when they completed study assessments," she said. "It appeared that by completing the self-assessments, people reflected on their own behavior and changed their behavior. It's very easy to implement and very cost effective."
The researchers surveyed 365 people living with HIV recruited from community medical clinics and health maintenance organizations. General requirements were that they be at least 18 years old, speak English, provide written informed consent, be free of severe neuropsychological impairments and psychosis, and not be involved in any other HIV behavioral intervention study.
Participants ranged in age from 19 to 69, with a median age of 41. Ninety-two percent were male, 70 percent were gay and 13 percent were bisexual. More than half were ethnic minorities, with African Americans accounting for 21 percent, Latinos 31 percent and other non-whites 7 percent. Eighty-eight percent were high school graduates, and 62 percent had completed at least one year of college. Seventy-seven percent received services from a non-HMO clinic.
While waiting for regularly scheduled examinations, participants were taken to a private room where they answered questions about their sexual behavior on laptop computers set up for that purpose. Questions addressed the number of participants' sexual partners, the HIV status of each partner and the number of sexual acts performed with them, and the number of times that condoms were used.
Some of the study participants completed more than four self-assessments.
Researchers found that the more self-assessments the patients completed, the higher the odds were that they would use condoms when having sex with HIV-negative partners or partners whose HIV status was unknown. Researchers also found that sexual activity tended to decrease over time as the number of self-assessments increased.
Also, as patients completed more assessments, they became increasingly aware of their risk of contracting other sexually transmitted diseases and their negative feelings about changing risky sexual behavior decreased. But neither the number of sex partners nor the fraction of protected acts with all partners showed any significant changes over time with increases in the number of self-assessments.
"Consequently, it appears that allowing PLH (people living with HIV) to reflect on their sexual behavior influences their subsequent decisions regarding sexual behavior," the researchers wrote. "It is likely that by having the patients acknowledge and report, in a nonconfrontive and nonjudgmental manner, those behaviors that could result in transmission of HIV, their motivation to reduce HIV-transmission-related behavior increased and their attitudes became more conducive to reducing risk behaviors.
"Consequently," they continued, "self-assessments appear to be a promising avenue for promoting behavior change in a setting which PLH regularly interface."
University of California - Los Angeles
HIV-positive News and Current HIV-positive Events RSSPrograms succeed in reducing risky sex among HIV-positive minority men
Research has shown that HIV-positive African American and Hispanic men who were sexually abused as children are particularly vulnerable to engaging in high-risk sex and experiencing depressive symptoms. Yet few HIV intervention programs exist to help them.
Extended infant antiretroviral prophylaxis reduces HIV risk during breastfeeding
In many resource-poor countries, infants born to mothers with HIV receive a single dose of nevirapine (NVP) and a one-week dose of zidovudine (ZDV) to prevent transmission of HIV from the mother to her newborn.
Involving partners of pregnant women in Africa to improve AIDS prevention
According to the World Health Organization, nearly three-quarters of the world's 40 million human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected people are living in Sub-Saharan Africa.
HIV Patients Still Stung by Stigma from Health-Care Providers
The doctor who wouldn't come into the patient's hospital room. The neurologist who avoided eye contact. The ambulance attendant who angrily threw her bloodied gloves into the street after learning the injured patient was HIV-positive.
'Good bacteria' in women give clues for slowing HIV transmission
Beneficial bacteria found in healthy women help to reduce the amount of vaginal HIV among HIV-infected women and make it more difficult for the virus to spread, boosting the possibility that "good bacteria" might someday be tapped in the fight against HIV.
Simple strategy could prevent half of deadly tuberculosis infections
By using a combination of inexpensive infection control measures, hospitals around the world could prevent half the new cases of extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB), according to a new study in The Lancet by researchers at Yale School of Medicine.
Doctors failing to diagnose HIV early in UK Africans
Doctors are missing valuable opportunities to diagnose HIV in Africans living in the UK, with serious consequences for their long term health, according to research funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Studies Suggest HIV Subtype More Deadly Than Others
Two studies led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that people infected with HIV in Thailand die from the disease significantly sooner than those with HIV living in other parts of the world.
AMPATH: Restoring lives not just immune systems
he HIV/AIDS epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa is decimating populations, depressing economies, deepening poverty and destabilizing traditional social orders.
HIV drug resistance risk in mothers reduced by combination of common drugs
New research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) shows that adding a single dose of two common anti-HIV drugs can prevent HIV-positive pregnant women from developing resistance to an entire class of drugs, potentially improving future treatment options.
More HIV-positive News Articles
 | Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope by Jenna Bush |
 | When Somebody Loves You Back by Mary B. Morrison |
 | Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story by Frederik Peeters |
 | Confessions of a Lonely Soul by II Harold L. Turley |
 | Couples of Mixed HIV Status: Clinical Issues And Interventions by Nancy Beckerman |
 | Butterscotch Blues by Margaret Johnson-Hodge |
 | Counseling Clients with HIV Disease: Assessment, Intervention, and Prevention by Mary Ann Hoffman |
 | It's Like That by Cheryl Robinson |
 | My Pet Virus: The True Story of a Rebel Without a Cure by Shawn Decker |
 | Handbook of Pediatric HIV Care |
| © 2008 BrightSurf.com |