Structured Treatment Manual for HIV-Positive Drug Abusers

Untreated drug dependency in HIV+ opiate and stimulant addicts poses a serious threat to the health of affected individuals and to the public primarily from HIV transmission via high risk drug and sexual behaviors. Retaining individuals in drug treatments may both improve the health of HIV+ addicts and limit HIV transmission. Directly and aggressively focusing on issues that address HIV+, AIDS, and interactions between HIV and drug abuse within the context of drug treatment may increase quality of outcomes for these types of clients. This project will produce a structured manual that guides drug counselors when intervening with HIV+ clients. Such a drug treatment product would have commercial value to public and private outpatient drug treatment systems. A Phase II portion of this project will empirically evaluate the protocol described in the manual in a controlled clinical trial with random assignment of subjects to treatment conditions.