Quasi-experimental study of HIV prevention programming for adolescents and parents in Côte d'Ivoire

DETAILED SUMMARY

Importance

• HIV/AIDS remains a major public health concern for young people in Côte d’Ivoire, particularly young women, who face substantially higher HIV prevalence than young men (2.2% vs. 0.3% among 15- to 24-year-olds). Sport Pour la Vie (SPV) and its parent-focused companion program, Communication Parents-Enfants (CPE), were developed to improve HIV knowledge, prevention behaviors, and parent-child communication among youth.

Objective

• To evaluate whether SPV and CPE, compared with no intervention, improve HIV/AIDS knowledge, prevention behaviors, and parent-child communication among adolescents aged 12–19 years and their parents in Côte d’Ivoire.

Study details

• Study design: Quasi-experimental study; included a control group
• Data collection tools: Pre- and post-intervention questionnaires (intervention and control groups)
• Participants: Adolescents ages 12–19 years (mixed gender); parents of adolescent participants
• Implementation setting: Community-based football centers and associated community settings in urban Côte d’Ivoire
• Study period: December 2012 to August 2013 (9 months)

Intervention

• Sport Pour la Vie (SPV): A football-themed HIV/AIDS prevention program using peer education and community mobilization to promote abstinence and safer sexual behavior, delivered alongside CPE, which builds parents’ skills to discuss sexuality and HIV/AIDS prevention with their children.

Results

• Sample: 840 participants (420 parents; 420 adolescents) completed pre- and post-intervention surveys across intervention and control groups.
• Results demonstrate greater gains in HIV prevention knowledge among SPV/CPE participants than controls, including an 8.4-point increase for parents and 15.1-point increase for teens in familiarity with basic prevention methods.
• Parent-child communication improved among CPE participants, with parents significantly more likely to discuss HIV testing, prevention, abstinence, and condom use with daughters (increases of 9–23 percentage points).
• 88% of SPV participants committed to abstinence or condom use by the end of the intervention.
• Despite these gains, misconceptions about HIV/AIDS transmission (e.g., via mosquito bites) persisted at similar rates across intervention and control groups.

Conclusions and implications

• SPV and CPE were associated with improvements in HIV/AIDS knowledge, prevention behaviors, and parent-child communication relative to a comparison group, though persistent misconceptions suggest continued myth-focused messaging is needed in future iterations.