Intimate partner violence and safer sex negotiation: effects of a gender-specific intervention

Abstract

This study examined the effects of a gender-specific HIV/STD prevention intervention with two dosage levels (four-session, eight-session) among women reporting physical abuse by a current or recent (past year) intimate partner. From 360 women included in the full randomized trial, we conducted subgroup analyses among 152 women who experienced partner physical abuse within the past year. Unprotected vaginal and anal sex occasions and negotiation skills were examined as outcomes. We also assessed whether the intervention increased previously abused women's subsequent risk of physical abuse. Among abused women, those in the eight-session, but not the four-session, intervention decreased their unprotected sex occasions or maintained consistent safer sex at both 1-month (OR = 3.63, 95% CI = 1.50-8.80) and 1-year (OR = 2.88, 95% CI = 1.17-7.10) postintervention. In the short-term, abused women in both the four- and eight-session groups had a greater odds of using an alternative strategy (e.g., refusal, "outercourse," or mutual testing) and of having a safer sex discussion with their partners relative to their controls, and they scored higher on intention to negotiate safer sex. The intervention did not increase or decrease the incidence of subsequent abuse during the 1-year follow-up period. A gender-specific intervention that focuses on negotiation skills in the context of potentially abusive partners benefits, and does not appear to harm, recently abused women.