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Drug Use and HIV Prevention With Young Gay and Bisexual Men: Partnered Status Predicts Intervention Response

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Abstract

The Young Men’s Health Project (YMHP) has shown efficacy in reducing drug use and condomless anal sex (CAS) with casual partners among young gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (YGBMSM). The study examined whether relationship status at the time of intervention predicted response to YMHP by comparing baseline (pre-intervention) and follow-up (3, 6, 9, and 12 months post-intervention) data from the original trial. A group of 13 partnered YGBMSM who received YMHP was compared to a matched subsample of single YGBMSM. Among single men, drug use declined significantly at all follow-ups. Among partnered men, drug use was largely stable. While significant reductions were observed at 9 month assessment, 3, 6, and 12 month use did not differ significantly from baseline. Regardless of relationship status, CAS with casual partners declined significantly at 12 month follow-up. Results suggest the incorporation of components which address relationship factors, particularly those associated with drug use, may enhance benefits of YMHP for partnered YGBMSM.

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Acknowledgements

Collection of these data was supported by a Grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) (R01- DA020366, Jeffrey T. Parsons, Principal Investigator). Data analysis was supported by Grants from the National Institute of Child and Human Development (NICHD) (U19 HD089875, Jeffrey T. Parsons and Sylvie Naar, Principal Investigators) and NIDA (R01 DA041262, Jeffrey T. Parsons, Principal Investigator). Dr. Starks’ effort on this paper was also supported by a Grant from NIDA (R01 DA045613; PI Starks).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY), 695 Park Ave., New York, NY, 10065, USA

    Tyrel J. Starks & Jeffrey T. Parsons

  2. Health Psychology and Clinical Science Doctoral Program, Graduate Center of CUNY, New York, NY, USA

    Tyrel J. Starks & Jeffrey T. Parsons

  3. Center for HIV/AIDS Educational Studies and Training (CHEST), New York, NY, USA

    Tyrel J. Starks & Jeffrey T. Parsons

Authors
  1. Tyrel J. Starks
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Contributions

The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the Young Men’s Health Project team—Sarit Golub, Corina Lelutiu-Weinberger, Anthony Bamonte, Chris Hietikko, Juline Koken, John Pachankis, Kevin Robin, Brooke Wells and the CHEST recruitment team, as well as Richard Jenkins for his support of the project.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jeffrey T. Parsons.

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Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Ethical Approval

All procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board of Hunter College, City University of New York. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Starks, T.J., Parsons, J.T. Drug Use and HIV Prevention With Young Gay and Bisexual Men: Partnered Status Predicts Intervention Response. AIDS Behav 22, 2788–2796 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-018-2091-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-018-2091-8

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