Study Details
DiClemente, R. J., Wingood, G. M., Sales, J. M., Brown, J. L., Rose, E. S., Davis, T. L., Lang, D. L., Caliendo, A., & Hardin, J. W. (2014). Efficacy of a telephone-delivered sexually transmitted infection/human immunodeficiency virus prevention maintenance intervention for adolescents: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Pediatrics, 168(10), 938–946.
Steiner, R. J., Swartzendruber, A. L., Rose, E., and DiClemente, R. J. (2014). Monitoring knowledge among family, sexually transmitted infections, and sexual partnership characteristics of African American adolescent females. Sexually Transmitted Diseases, 41(10), 601–604. doi:10.1097/OLQ.0000000000000188
Booster sexual risk reduction counseling implemented as a supplement to HORIZONS
Program Information
Evaluation Setting
Study Sample
Research Design
701
6
36 months after start of intervention
Study Findings
Booster sexual health counseling, implemented as part of the evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention program HORIZONS, was evaluated using a randomized controlled trial design involving 701 Black young women ages 14 to 20 recruited from three health clinics in Atlanta, Georgia. This booster sexual health risk reduction counseling component is designed as a prevention maintenance intervention to support the use of behaviors that prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV and reduce the incidence of STIs. The component included a total of 18 telephone calls by health educators, each about 10 minutes long, every eight weeks during a three-year period after the conclusion of the in-person clinic-based HORIZONS program.
Participants in the evaluation were randomly assigned to either a treatment group that received HORIZONS plus the booster sexual risk reduction counseling component, or a control group that received HORIZONS plus an identical dosage of general health promotion counseling phone calls. Computer-assisted, self-administered interviews and self-collected vaginal swab specimens were collected at baseline and at 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36 months after the primary HORIZONS program ended.
At 36 months after the primary HORIZONS program ended (immediately after the phone calls ended), the study found that adolescents assigned to receive sexual health counseling phone calls reported a significantly higher proportion of their vaginal sex episodes as condom-protected in the past 90 days (effect size = 2.2) and in the past six months (effect size = 2.2) relative to adolescents assigned to receive the general health promotion counseling calls. Adolescents assigned to sexual health counseling also reported having significantly fewer vaginal sex partners in the past six months (effect size = -2.2).
The study also examined the impacts of the booster sexual health risk reduction counseling on measures of prevalence of STIs (chlamydial and gonococcal) using a pooled sample of participants who completed any of the six follow-ups. Findings for these outcomes did not meet the review standards because the pooled sample had high attrition and did not demonstrate baseline equivalence. In addition, the authors did not report impact estimates for each follow-up separately.
Finally, the study examined impacts on measures of sexual activity while high on drugs or alcohol, but findings for those measures fell outside the scope of the review.
NA = Not available. This means the authors did not report the information in the manuscripts associated with the studies we reviewed.
a This information was not available whenever authors did not report information for the treatment and comparison groups separately on outcome means, standard deviations, and/or sample sizes.
b Authors reported that the program effect (impact) estimate is statistically significant with a p-value of less than 0.05 based on a two-tailed test.
c For some outcomes, having less of that outcome is favorable. In those cases, an effect with a negative sign is favorable to the treatment group (that is, the treatment group had a more favorable outcome than the comparison group, on average).
d An effect shows credibly estimated, statistically significant evidence whenever it has a p-value of less than 0.05 based on a two-tailed test, includes the appropriate adjustment for clustering (if applicable), and it is not based on an endogenous subgroup.
Language directly from the program model developer or authors.