HIV/STD Safer Sex Skills Groups for Women in Drug Treatment Programs

The proposed trial is intended to test the effectiveness of a proven, manual driven, five-session safer sexual skills building group (SSB) intervention (Schilling et al., 1991; El Bassel and Schilling, 1992) for female patients in MMTP or in drug-free outpatient treatment. The effects of SSB will be compared to a standard group HIV education session (HE). This study uses a 2-group, randomized, parallel-group design to compare a five-session safer sexual skills building group to a single 60-min HIV education session (control condition). The control condition is designed to standardize and simulate the usual care at community clinics.