Original articlesInfluence of prior sexual risk experience on response to intervention targeting multiple risk behaviors among adolescents
Section snippets
Subjects
Eight hundred seventeen African-American youth and their parents from 35 low-income housing developments, community centers, and recreation centers in Baltimore were recruited during 1999–2000. The youth and their parents participated in a randomized longitudinal trial of HIV risk-reduction interventions. The research staff at each site described the purpose, general design, and enrollment criteria to potentially eligible youth who were 13 through 16 years of age. Interested youth were given
Overall
Among the 817 African-American youth who participated in the study, 40 subjects who did not respond to the sexual risk questions were excluded from the present analysis. Among the 783 subjects included in this study, 58% were abstinent, 31% were classified as low-sexual risk, and 11% were high-sexual risk at baseline. The mean age of the sample was 14 years old; 58% were female.
Bivariate associations of sexual risk variations at baseline
Table 1 displays the demographic and behavioral characteristics of youth by their sexual risk index with 0 being
Discussion
Consistent with the literature, data confirm the co-variation of risk behaviors [31] and repeated involvement in multiple problem behaviors in adolescence [32], [33]. As most of the existing research on sexual risk behavior has been conducted using cross-sectional data to assess relationship between high-risk sexual behavior and single-risk behavior such as smoking, alcohol use, and drug use [8], [9], [10], [11], our findings further indicated that youth who engaged in unprotected sexual
Conclusions
Analyses results support intervention efforts targeting multiple risk behaviors, and provide strong evidence that HIV risk-reduction interventions targeting the whole spectrum of risk behaviors is effective in increasing condom use and decreasing problem behavior engagements. Response to the intervention was influenced significantly by the degree of sexual risk involvement at baseline. Youth engaging in the highest degree of sexual risk demonstrated the greatest reduction in both sexual risk
Acknowledgment
This research was supported by the National Institutes of Mental Health (grant RO1 MH 54983). We thank Yvonne Summers and the members of the research team for their assistance in conducting the study and Mary Bane for help in preparing the manuscript.
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