Effectiveness of psychoeducational interventions in reducing emotional distress after human immunodeficiency virus antibody testing.

Overview

To examine the effectiveness of three psychoeducational interventions in reducing emotional distress after voluntary serologic testing for human immunodeficiency virus-1,307 physically asymptomatic adults were randomly assigned to standard counseling, counseling plus a three-session interactive video program, or counseling plus six individual sessions of stress prevention training. Subjects were evaluated using five standardized distress measures at entry and 3 months later. Among the 204 human immunodeficiency virus-seronegative subjects, mean distress measures decreased significantly after all three interventions without differential treatment effects. Among the 103 human immunodeficiency virus-seropositive subjects, mean distress measures decreased significantly after the stress prevention training and did not significantly increase in the other two interventions. We conclude that stress prevention training is particularly helpful after notification of human immunodeficiency virus seropositivity.