STD/HIV treatment & prevention: results of three multi-centre randomised-controlled trials

Abstract

Aims: This symposium reports on the development and evaluation of three behaviour change interventions: the Long Live Love sexual-education intervention for high-school students in the Netherlands ; the PREPARE HIV-prevention intervention targeting youth in South African schools; the AIMS-intervention to promote HIV-medication adherence among adult patients in the Netherlands. All interventions have been developed according to Intervention Mapping principles and have been evaluated in multi-site, randomised controlled trials. We will report the findings of these trials, including the lessons learned during development, implementation and process & effect evaluations. Rationale: The theme of this year’s conference is Principles of behaviour change in health and illness. All three behaviour change interventions have been systematically developed based on Intervention Mapping principles; they target healthy populations and people with a chronic illness; and they have recently been evaluated in large-scale, (cluster) randomised trials to examine (cost) effectiveness. Reporting on the intervention-development rationale, the results and lessons learned in these three sophisticated trials corresponds perfectly with the conference theme and would enable timely reporting of newly-available findings to EHPS delegates. Summary: Presentation 1 introduces the principles of Intervention Mapping, before illustrating how these have been applied in the development of a sexual education program for high-school students in the Netherlands. The 2nd presentation will build on this and add the perspective of cultural relevance/sensitivity in developing and implementing an HIV-prevention for high-school students in South Africa. Presentation 3 and 4 will report on the development, implementation and evaluation of an HIV-treatment adherence intervention for ethnically diverse HIV-patients in the Netherlands. The outcome and process evaluations in the first 2 presentations focus on self-reported determinants and behaviour patterns, while the last 2 presentation will aim for changing objective clinical outcomes and establishing programme cost-effectiveness. Combined, these presentations will showcase the state-of-the-art in intervention development and evaluation.