Building skills of recovering women drug users to reduce heterosexual AIDS transmission

摘要: Although most women infected with HIV are intravenous drug users, some contact the virus through sexual IV users. To reach at-risk women, public health officials must develop a range of prevention strategies. One approach, skills training, holds promise as means altering risk-related behavior. In this study, 91 methadone patients were pretested and randomly assigned to an information-only control group or skills-building intervention group. Skills-building consisted five sessions small groups in which participants identified their own high risk behaviors, discussed negative associations condoms, practiced involved asking partners use condoms. Compared members group, respondents reported that they initiated discussion issues more frequently, felt comfortable talking them about safer sex, using carrying condoms frequently. The rates attendance program retention by suggest such may be supportive useful design reduction abuse treatment programs. modest outcomes study underscore difficulty behavior but also serve basis for future AIDS studies.