Digital Star: HIV Prevention for Youth in Mental Health Treatment

描述（由申请人提供）：青少年在心理健康治疗是在艾滋病毒和其他性传播疾病的风险比同龄人更大，由于性行为的发病年龄较早，保护性行为较少，更多的性伴侣，更频繁的物质使用。这种更大的风险是由于多种因素，包括认知错误，情绪失调和自我效能感降低。许多青少年接受心理健康治疗，是在各种环境中进行的，如日间医院方案、治疗学校和寄宿中心。这些方案提供各种保健服务，但没有专门针对性的有效艾滋病毒预防方案 除了本项目中描述的问题之外，还针对青少年心理健康治疗问题。星星（“安全思维和情感调节”）是一个获奖的和有效的十四届小组干预，成功的目标是在性的情况下，作为关键，新颖的元素，以提高性安全的情感调节和认知监测。这14次小组干预赢得了2012年美国儿童和青少年精神病学学会颁发的Rieger科学成就奖。这是第一个也是唯一一个在心理健康治疗中证明青年安全性行为有所改善的干预措施，这是一个处于风险中的群体，而不是针对他们的问题量身定制的干预措施。的 该SBIR快速通道项目的目标是将星星转换为一种引人入胜的数字多媒体格式，即数字星星（D* 星星），以便为青少年提供心理健康治疗的护理机构轻松可靠地使用。为了改变这种干预措施，在生产和分销尖端技术干预措施方面有着成功历史的公司Virtually Better与罗得岛医院和布朗大学的星星研究开发人员合作。在这个快速通道项目的两个阶段，数字会话的开发将通过一个迭代的反馈和改进过程来完成，这个过程是在Virtually Better、星星的开发者、接受心理健康治疗的青少年和社区咨询委员会之间进行的。创建的多媒体干预，D* 星星，将传达相关信息，提供现实的技能实践，并参与和愉快。将在120名13至18岁的青少年中进行D* 星星与时间匹配的数字一般健康促进条件的随机对照试验，以确保D* 星星在改善艾滋病毒知识和相关态度以及增加安全性行为方面有效。这个项目是创新的，因为D* 星星将包含一个经过验证的，获奖的干预措施的基本要素;其数字格式将允许可靠和一致的交付能力;它将被使用，而不需要广泛的培训或高度专业化的主持人;它将使用引人入胜的，身临其境的技术，最大限度地吸引青年。制定这一高质量的实施方案以便于传播，对于从这一经证实的青年心理健康治疗艾滋病毒预防干预措施中实现更大的公共卫生影响至关重要。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Adolescents in mental health treatment are at greater risk for HIV and other STIs than their peers due to an earlier age of onset of sex, less protected sex, more sexual partners, and more frequent substance use. This greater risk is due to multiple factors including cognitive misperceptions, affect dysregulation, and less self efficacy. The numerous adolescents who receive mental health treatment do so in a variety of settings such as day hospital programs, therapeutic schools and residential centers. These programs offer a variety of health services but there is no efficacious HIV prevention program specifically tailored for the issues of youth in mental health treatment, other than the one described in this project. STAR ("Safe Thinking and Affect Regulation") is an award winning and efficacious fourteen session group intervention that successfully targets affect regulation and cognitive monitoring in sexual situations as the key, novel elements to improve sexual safety. This fourteen session group intervention won the Rieger Award for Scientific Achievement from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 2012. It is the first and only intervention to have demonstrated an improvement in safer sexual behavior for youth in mental health treatment, a group that is at- risk and not otherwise targeted with interventions tailored for their issues. The goal of this SBIR Fast-Track project is to transform STAR into an engaging digital, multimedia format, Digital STAR (D*STAR), for easy and reliable use by care agencies that serve adolescents in mental health treatment. To transform this intervention, Virtually Better, a company with a successful history of production and distribution of cutting-edge technological interventions, has teamed with the research developers of STAR at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University. During the two phases of this Fast-Track project, digital session development will be accomplished by an iterative process of feedback and refinement between Virtually Better, the developers of STAR, adolescents in mental health treatment, and a Community Advisory Board. The created multimedia intervention, D*STAR, will convey relevant information, offer realistic skills practice, and be engaging and enjoyable. A randomized control trial of D*STAR compared to a time-matched digital general health promotion condition will be conducted among 120 adolescents ages 13 to 18 in mental health treatment to ensure that D*STAR is efficacious in improving HIV knowledge and relevant attitudes, and increasing safer sexual behavior. This project is innovative because D*STAR will contain the essential elements of a proven, award winning intervention; its digital format will allow for reliable and consistent deliverability; it will be utilized without the need for extensively trained or highly specialized facilitators; and it will use engaging, immersive technologies that are maximally appealing to youth. Developing this high- quality implementation package for easy dissemination is essential to achieving a greater public health impact from this proven HIV prevention intervention for youth in mental health treatment.