AEGiS-14IAC: Adapting best practices to new venues: A one-day workshop on goal setting in feild-based encounters.

14th International AIDS Conference

Barcelona, Spain - July 7-12, 2002

Adapting best practices to new venues: A one-day workshop on goal setting in feild-based encounters.

Int Conf AIDS 2002 Jul 7-12; 14:(abstract no. F11801)

Buitron M, Rodriguez JC
Harbor-UCLA Research &Education Institute, Los Angeles, United States

ISSUES: "Best Practice" interventions are those that have been proven to reduce HIV risk and that can be reproduced effectively, outside of the research setting. One of the limits of these theory-based interventions comes from their not being conducted with different at-risk populations, or to adapting them in settings other than their original implementation.

DESCRIPTION: This presentation describes a one-day workshop that translates goal-based HIV risk reduction through incremental steps that was proven to be effective in clinic-based settings, to its use in the field by community health outreach workers. Using the Transtheoretical Model, outreach staff are shown how to assess a clients readiness for change. Based on the client's current stage and prior encounters with program staff, an incremental step towards lower risk is negotiated and agreed on. Using a simple decision tree, the focus of the encounter can range from the purely cognitive-such as increasing self-perception of risk-to physical actions like negotiating condom use. The workshop closes with vignettes that are problem-solved in small groups, then reviewed by all the participants.

ISSUES: Research has shown that health education alone is not as effective as client-tailored strategies. This workshop, conducted with outreach workers that target various at-risk populations across Los Angeles County (USA), adapts interventions proven to be effective in clinic and office-based settings. In conducting this workshop, we have shown that it is possible to follow-up on previous encounters, thus increasing the effectiveness of this intervention, even when contacts were conducted by different program staff.

RECOMMENDATIONS: This research recommends that client-centered goal-based counseling be delivered in the field to further reduce HIV risk among clients that do not or cannot attend clinic- or office-based venues.

Keywords: AEGIS, Behavior Therapy, Goals, HIV Infections, Counseling, Learning, Time, Health Education, Memory, Community-Institutional Relations, HIV Seropositivity, Recognition (Psychology), Los Angeles, Human, Education

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