The long-term effectiveness of an HIV prevention intervention for low-income African American women.

The effectiveness of an HIV prevention intervention for low-income African American women between the ages of 20 and 44 years was assessed. The hypothesis was that at 3, 6, and 9 months, treatment intervention women would have significantly greater increase from baseline on self-efficacy, condom use knowledge, protective sexual behavior, prevention community behavior, and perceived HIV vulnerability compared with the control intervention women. Using an interrupted time series design, one of two geographically distinct but demographically similar communities was randomly assigned to the treatment intervention. A total of 280 women participated. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed no differences at pretest for the treatment and control women. Compared with control women, treatment women significantly increased self-efficacy, protective sexual behavior, condom knowledge, and prevention community behavior. A slight decline in protective sexual behavior at 9 months may indicate that a linear pattern of change may not be appropriate to describe sexual behavioral change.