HIV Prevention for Youth With Severe Mental Illness
Condition: HIV Infections
MeSH terms: Mental Disorders
Study type: Interventional
Phase: Phase 1

Summary: 
      This 4-year competing continuation will extend the follow-up for 750 subjects enrolled in a
      randomized interventions trial, Project STYLE: "HIV Prevention for Youth with Severe Mental
      Illness" (R01, MH 63008). Extending the follow-up from one year to 36 months will 1) discern
      the long-term impact of the Project STYLE interventions and 2) permit complex modeling of the
      predictors and trajectories of sexual health (delay of sex) and risk (incident STIs).
      Adolescents, particularly those in mental health treatment, are at risk for HIV because of
      sexual and substance behaviors. Parent-child communication about sexual topics and parental
      supervision are associated with delays in the onset of sexual activity and more responsible
      sexual behavior; thus, the parent project, Project STYLE, is a randomized trial that is
      evaluating the comparative efficacy of three interventions: a) family-based HIV prevention
      intervention, b) adolescent-only HIV prevention intervention, and c) general health promotion
      intervention. This multi-site project (Rhode Island Hospital, Emory University, and the
      University of Illinois at Chicago) is enrolling an ethnically/racially/geographically diverse
      group of 750 adolescents in outpatient mental health treatment and their parents. Subjects
      receive a full day group intervention on the day of randomization, return in two weeks for an
      individual session, participate in a half day booster session three months later, and are
      assessed six and 12 months after the intervention. This application offers a unique
      opportunity to assess this already ascertained sample at three additional points (24,30, and
      36 months). This is important because few studies have examined the longer-term predictors of
      the delay of sex and incident STIs over 36 months using a comprehensive array of family
      functioning, family monitoring/communication, and trauma history. Additionally, this
      continuation will provide important data concerning the long-term impact of Project STYLE's
      theoretically based HIV prevention programs which are designed to maintain safe sexual
      behaviors. The Family-Based program has increased parent/adolescent sexual communication and
      reduced adolescent unprotected sex after six months and extended assessment will determine
      whether these benefits are maintained over time.
    


Intervention name(s): Family-based HIV prevention program
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): comparison between parent-child intervention targeting parent-teen sexual communication, condom use skills, and assertiveness training to an adolescent-only intervention that targets similar constructs minus parent-teen sexual communication and a general health promotion intervention
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Prevention
Keywords: HIV prevention; HIV Seronegativity