In a randomized controlled study, Dr. Stephen F. Morin of the University of California, San Francisco and colleagues assigned 936 individuals with HIV, and at risk of transmitting the virus, to no intervention or to a behavioral intervention.

The program consisted of fifteen 90-minute sessions, covering three modules. One module consisted of stress, coping and adjustment behaviors, the second involved teaching safer behaviors, and the third was a program of health behaviors.

Follow-up assessments were conducted at 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 months. "Transmission risk, as measured by the number of unprotected sexual risk acts with persons of HIV-negative or unknown status, was the main outcome," the team explains in the February 1st issue of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.

HIV transmission risk was reduced by 36% in the intervention group, compared with the control group, at the 20-month assessment. "Unfortunately, the treatment effect in terms of a reduction of HIV transmission risk acts was not maintained at 25 months," the investigators report.

Dr. Morin and colleagues in the Healthy Living Project point out that "even small behavior changes among infected individuals can have a significant effect on the epidemic." This suggests that the behavioral intervention used in this study "can be effective in reducing the number of new HIV events."

J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr 2007;44:213-221.

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