Abstinence Reinforcing Contingency Management to Suppress HIV Viral Load (Project First), New York City, 2012

This study is part of the Seek, Test, Treat and Retain (STTR) Collaboration Project that involved over twenty studies in the fields of HIV and drug abuse. All studies were independently developed, but were chosen for the collaboration because they focused on one or more steps of the HIV treatment cascade: Seek, Test, Treat and Retain. As part of STTR Collaboration Project, the studies were grouped into Criminal Justice-related studies and Vulnerable Population-related studies. The data collected by these studies included twelve common domains (e.g., Demographic characteristics, Mental Health) in each of which a shared questionnaire or instrument was taken up by the studies and adapted to fit the study.
Using a randomized controlled study design, this study tested the efficacy of an abstinence-reinforcing CM intervention compared with a control condition (performance feedback) on HIV viral load (VL) suppression. The intervention CM group could receive up to $1320 in vouchers over the 16-week intervention based on drug-free urine. Participants were followed for 28 weeks (44 visits), with research visits occurring twice weekly during the Baseline Period (weeks 1-4, visits 1-8) and Intervention Period (weeks 5-20, visits 9-40), then every two weeks during the Post-Intervention Period (weeks 21-28, visits 41-44).