Effects of a Culturally Adapted HIV Prevention Intervention in Haitian Youth

• Published in: The Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care Vol. 20; no. 2; pp. 110 - 121
• Main Authors: Malow, Robert M., Stein, Judith A., McMahon, Robert C., Dévieux, Jessy G., Rosenberg, Rhonda, Jean-Gilles, Michèle
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01-03-2009; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Ovid Technologies
• Subjects: adolescence; Adolescent; Adolescents; AIDS/HIV; At risk; At risk youth; Cultural awareness; Culture; Disease prevention; Female; Florida - epidemiology; Haiti; Haiti - ethnology; haitian; Health behavior; Health education; Health Promotion; HIV; HIV Infections - prevention & control; HIV prevention; Human immunodeficiency virus; Humans; Male; Minority & ethnic groups; Motivation; Nursing; Patient Education as Topic; Preventive programmes; Risk Reduction Behavior; sexual risk; Florida; Haiti; Miami Florida; United States > US; adolescence; HIV prevention; sexual risk; haitian
• ISSN: 1055-3290; 1552-6917
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jana.2008.12.003

This study assessed the impact of an 8-week community-based translation of Becoming a Responsible Teen (BART), an HIV intervention that has been shown to be effective in other at-risk adolescent populations. A sample of Haitian adolescents living in the Miami area was randomized to a general health education control group (n = 101) or the BART intervention (n = 145), which was based on the information-motivation-behavior (IMB) model. Improvement in various IMB components (i.e., attitudinal, knowledge, and behavioral skills variables) related to condom use was assessed 1 month after the intervention. Longitudinal structural equation models using a mixture of latent and measured multi-item variables indicated that the intervention significantly and positively impacted all IMB variables tested in the model. These BART intervention-linked changes reflected greater knowledge, greater intentions to use condoms in the future, higher safer sex self-efficacy, an improved attitude about condom use, and an enhanced ability to use condoms after the 8-week intervention.