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Demonstration and Evaluation of a Peer-Delivered, Individually-Tailored, HIV Prevention Intervention for HIV-Infected MSM in their Primary Care Setting

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Abstract

Employing HIV-infected peer counselors in secondary prevention interventions for MSM is appealing for scalable interventions. One-hundred-seventy-six HIV-infected MSM at their primary care facility participated in a secondary HIV-prevention study delivered by HIV-infected MSM peers. Of those who entered the intervention and completed the initial intake, 62% completed all four of the intervention sessions, and 93% completed at least one. While there was no overall change in transmission risk behavior (TRB) for the whole sample, among those who reported HIV TRB at baseline (n = 29), there were significant reductions in TRB over the next year. Themes that emerged in qualitative exit interviews conducted with a subset of participants centered on peer counselor quality, intervention implications, and intervention experience. This demonstration project provides initial evidence for the ability to recruit HIV-infected MSM in care into a peer-based intervention study, and shows how a peer-based intervention can be delivered in the context of HIV care.

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Notes

  1. Note—this negative binomial estimate is an average over the 12-month period, and therefore does not correspond with the exact time points for the mean presented over time in Table 4 and Fig. 2.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by HRSA grant H97HA01293 awarded to Drs. Kenneth H. Mayer and Steven A. Safren. The authors would like to thank the following individuals for their hard work that made the study possible: Daniel Aguilar, Jeremy Hobsen, Robert Knauz, Rodney VanDerwarker, Benjamin Capistrant, Jessica Ripton, Danielle Dang, Liz Salomon, Bonnie Kissler, Alex Weissman, Adam Sussman, Dhana Perry, Christopher Sterling, William O’Brien, the medical providers at Fenway Community Health, the Fenway Community Advisory Board, the staff for the HRSA-funded EPPIC site at UCSF including Carol Dawson-Rose, Stephen Morin. We also thank Drs. Margaret Chesney and Ronald Stall for their consultation about the project. Finally, and most importantly, we thank the study participants.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Fenway Institute at Fenway Health, 1340 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Steven A. Safren, Conall O’Cleirigh, Margie R. Skeer, Jeffrey Driskell, Brett M. Goshe, Charles Covahey & Kenneth H. Mayer

  2. MGH Behavioral Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 1 Bowdoin Sq, 7th Floor, Boston, MA, 02114, USA

    Steven A. Safren & Conall O’Cleirigh

  3. Department of Community Health, Brown University, Providence, USA

    Margie R. Skeer

  4. Department of Social Work, Salem State College, Salem, USA

    Jeffrey Driskell

  5. Brown University School of Medicine, Providence, USA

    Kenneth H. Mayer

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  1. Steven A. Safren
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  2. Conall O’Cleirigh
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  3. Margie R. Skeer
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  4. Jeffrey Driskell
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  6. Charles Covahey
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  7. Kenneth H. Mayer
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Correspondence to Steven A. Safren.

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Safren, S.A., O’Cleirigh, C., Skeer, M.R. et al. Demonstration and Evaluation of a Peer-Delivered, Individually-Tailored, HIV Prevention Intervention for HIV-Infected MSM in their Primary Care Setting. AIDS Behav 15, 949–958 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-010-9807-8

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