Romania (2007): HIV/AIDS TRaC Study Evaluating the Effect of a POL-type Program among Young People Frequenting Dance Clubs in Bucharest Second Round

Research objectives include monitoring and evaluation of the effect of PSI Romania intervention in changing sexual behavior. Specifically, research objectives refer to measuring the implementation of the Popular Opinion Leader (POL) intervention, measuring exposure to the intervention, and correlating exposure with desired changes in health behaviors and selected determinants of these behaviors. The study employed a one-stage cluster survey design with the number of respondents per club selec ted proportional to size of the club. Clubs were selected by convenience (baseline: those which included the target population and in which permission could be obtained to conduct the research; follow-up: those where the intervention was implemented; 11 out of 15 clubs were included in both baseline and follow-up sample for more details please refer to Annex 2). Respondents were interviewed using the computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) method. The questionnaire for both men and women included 61 items at baseline and 71 items at follow-up (exposure to program questions added) focusing on socio-demographic characteristics, sexual experiences and behaviors; knowledge about the use of condoms, knowledge regarding HIV and STI transmission and protection, self-efficacy, perceived threat and locus of control regarding condom negotiation, condom use, and comm unication between partners, and questions regarding exposure to PSI programs targeted at young people in Bucharest, Romania. The research report presents results for three targets: males and females (the sample was stratified by sex from the study design phase) and males with multiple partners, considered a high risk group, especially targeted by the intervention. No results are presented on females with multiple partners, as this sub-sample was too small to allow for valid statistical analysis.