Race/ethnicity as a moderator of HIV/STD sexual risk reduction groups for women in substance abuse treatment.

High-risk sexual behavior is an important vector of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, particularly among female substance abusers. Effective interventions to reduce unprotected sexual occasions (USO) and increase condom skills in this population are needed. Literature suggests ethnicity may influence risk behavior and participant response to intervention. This poster describes a secondary analysis of a gender-specific controlled multi-site trial of a 5-session HIV/STD risk reduction intervention for women, Safer Sex Skills Building (SSB), compared to a 1-session Health Education (HE) control (National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network protocol CTN-0019). SSB was skills-oriented but not ethnically tailored. Based on literature, it was hypothesized that ethnicity would moderate the intervention effects of SSB, reducing USO and increasing condom use skills among Caucasians but not minorities. For the primary outcome (unprotected sexual occasions), results found a significant main effect of treatment, reflecting lower USO in the SSB group, but no ethnicity by treatment interaction. For male condom use skills, there was an interaction between ethnicity and time, reflecting significantly greater skills among minorities at the 6-month follow-up. For female condom use skills, there was an interaction between ethnicity and treatment, reflecting significantly higher skills among minorities in the SSB group.

Conclusions: Contrary to the original hypothesis, a skills-based HIV risk reduction intervention was equal to or more effective among minorities in reducing unprotected sexual occasions and increasing condom use skills.

Related protocols: CTN-0019