What experienced HIV-infected lay peer educators working in Midwestern U.S. HIV medical care settings think about their role and contributions to patient care.

This qualitative study examined the role of experienced HIV-infected lay individuals who work in HIV medical care settings as educators. Participants in this study had been in the role an average of 4 years, and referred to their work as "peering," a newly coined verb in the vein of nursing. An overarching theme was that the title "peer educator" captured neither the scope of their work, nor the skill set they contribute to patient care.

A randomized controlled trial examining the efficacy of motivational counseling with observed therapy for antiretroviral therapy adherence.

This study determined whether motivational interviewing-based cognitive behavioral therapy (MI-CBT) adherence counseling combined with modified directly observed therapy (MI-CBT/mDOT) is more effective than MI-CBT counseling alone or standard care (SC) in increasing adherence over time. A three-armed randomized controlled 48-week trial with continuous electronic drug monitored adherence was conducted by randomly assigning 204 HIV-positive participants to either 10 sessions of MI-CBT counseling with mDOT for 24 weeks, 10 sessions of MI-CBT counseling alone, or SC. Poisson mixed effects regression models revealed significant interaction effects of intervention over time on non-adherence defined as percent of doses not-taken (IRR = 1.

Adapting effective narrative-based HIV-prevention interventions to increase minorities' engagement in HIV/AIDS services.

Disparities related to barriers to caring for HIV-positive and at-risk minorities continue to be a major public health problem. Adaptation of efficacious HIV-prevention interventions for use as health communication innovations is a promising approach for increasing minorities' utilization of HIV health and ancillary services. Role-model stories, a widely-used HIV-prevention strategy, employ culturally tailored narratives to depict experiences of an individual modeling health-risk reduction behaviors.

The patient-provider relationship and adherence to highly active antiretroviral therapy.

Four studies completed since 1995 have highlighted the importance of the relationship between the provider and the patient in enhancing adherence behavior. This study extends this work by comparing adherent and nonadherent clients in one high-volume HIV clinic in which the majority of care is provided by nursing staff. The sample comprised 130 clients (108 adherent and 22 nonadherent).