Project Roadmap: Reeducating Older Adults in Maintaining AIDS Prevention: A Secondary Intervention for Older HIV-Positive Adults

Abstract

The number of older adults living with HIV/AIDS is larger than ever. Little is known about their sexual behaviors, although contrary to stereotypes, older adults desire and engage in sexual activity. Despite increased recognition of the need for prevention interventions targeting HIV-positive individuals, no secondary HIV prevention interventions have specifically targeted the older HIV-positive adult. Efforts to target high-risk sexual behaviors may be even more critical in the older population because of sociocultural, biological, and behavioral vulnerabilities. In response, Project ROADMAP (Reeducating Older Adult in Maintaining AIDS Prevention) intervention was developed to reduce high-risk sexual behaviors among older HIV-positive patients in primary care clinics. The purpose of this article is to report the 6-month outcomes of a behavioral intervention designed to reduce sexual risk behaviors in older HIV-positive adults.

“Of course it’s relevant!”: A focus group study of older adults' perceived importance of HIV/AIDS prevention education

“…Consistent with current research (Illa et al, 2010;Schick et al, 2010), the findings provide additional evidence that the population of older adults needs to be taken seriously as being at risk because of past, current, and future sexual activity. The authors believe that findings from these focus groups indicate that older adults may in fact see the importance of HIV/AIDS awareness, but that ageist stereotypes held by such external sources as their doctors and other healthcare providers may be contributing to the belief that HIV/AIDS prevention education is not necessary for this population.…”

HIV behavioural interventions targeted towards older adults: a systematic review

“…The four articles conducted among HIV-negative participants aimed to improve general HIV knowledge to facilitate HIV prevention. Within the studies among HIV-positive participants, the main outcome measure of Lovejoy and colleagues [53] and Illa and colleagues [54] articles was reduced sexual risk behavior. The three Heckman et al articles [35,37,55] focused on mental health and coping assessments while the two Souza et al papers [36,56] emphasized physical status and strength.…”

HIV-related knowledge and practices: a cross-sectional study among adults aged 50 years and above in Botswana

“…A summary score on the outcome variable 'General knowledge of HIV' was obtained by summing the item scores, 1 = yes and was rated as very high for a score of 4 points (that is 'yes' on all items), high for a score of 3 points ('yes' on any 3 items), medium for 2 points and low for a score of 1 point. 20 The results show that 95.7% (n = 580) of the older adults have very high knowledge of HIV and AIDS, 4.1% (n = 25) have high knowledge while 0.2% (n = 1) have low knowledge.…”

“…studies that report continued high rates of unprotected intercourse among people with HIV, approximating 33%. 20,32,33 The authors showed that interventions to reduce risk of HIV transmission resulted in significantly less unprotected intercourse and greater condom use at follow-up. Transmissionrisk behaviours with non-HIV-positive sexual partners and estimated HIV transmission rates over a one-year horizon were also significantly lower for the behavioural risk-reduction intervention group.…”