SISTA South Africa: the adaptation of an efficacious HIV prevention trial conducted with African-American women for isiXhosa-speaking South African women

Abstract

Although new HIV treatments continue to offer hope for individuals living with HIV, behavioural interventions shown to reduce HIV risk behaviour remain one of the most powerful tools in curbing the HIV epidemic. Unfortunately, the development of evidence based HIV interventions is a resource-intensive process that has not progressed as quickly as the epidemiology of the disease. As the epidemic continues to evolve, there is a need to expedite the development of evidence-based HIV interventions for populations that are often disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS. One mechanism of accelerating the development process is to adapt evidence-based HIV interventions for vulnerable populations. The aim of this paper was to describe the adaptation process of a HIV intervention for African-American women for black South African Xhosa women. For African-American women the intervention was effective in increasing consistent condom use, sexual self-control, sexual communication, sexual assertiveness and partner adoption of norms supporting consistent condom use.