Evaluation of a community-based organization's intervention to reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases: a randomized, controlled trial.
BACKGROUND
The study objectives were to determine whether a community-based organization's intensive counseling intervention would reduce sexually transmitted disease (STD) acquisition among high-risk STD clinic patients and to determine whether a low-cost trial could be conducted in a community-based setting with passive follow-up.


METHODS
Participants were randomly assigned to routine counseling or intensive counseling consisting of three 1-hour sessions. We reviewed clinic records to determine 1-year cumulative incidence of STD.


RESULTS
From September 1994 through December 1995, we enrolled 581 high-risk black men. Among the intervention group, 38% did not attend any intervention session; 38% attended all three. The 1-year cumulative incidence of STD did not differ significantly between the intervention (16%) and control groups (12%) (P = 0.20).


CONCLUSIONS
Our results suggest that the intensive counseling did not reduce STD acquisition. We encountered problems in conducting this low-cost trial, making results difficult to interpret Future trials should schedule follow-up STD assessments and will likely need more staff.
Maher
Julie E
JE
Epidemic Intelligence Service, Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention-Surveillance and Epidemiology, National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA. julie.e.maher@state.or.us
Peterman
Thomas A
TA
Osewe
Patrick L
PL
Odusanya
Sandra
S
Scerba
John R
JR
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D003376:Counseling; D005431:Florida / Q000453:epidemiology; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D015397:Program Evaluation; D040242:Risk Reduction Behavior; D012749:Sexually Transmitted Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*