Healing Our Women for Transgender Women: Adaptation, Acceptability, and Pilot Testing.

Abstract

Healing Our Women (HOW) is a group-level HIV risk-reduction intervention developed to address the role of prior sexual victimization in HIV risk and protective behaviors among HIV-positive women of color. This article describes the process of adapting HOW for transgender women of color in New York City in accordance with CDC guidance for the adaptation of efficacious interventions. Twenty-one transgender women were enrolled in a study to evaluate the acceptability and fidelity of the adapted intervention, and to assess HIV knowledge, depressive symptoms, coping, condom use self-efficacy, and condom use via pre- and post-intervention surveys. We found the adapted program to be feasible to implement and acceptable to participants. We also found significant decreases in depressive symptoms and increases in positive coping from pre- to post-intervention, although replication with a larger sample and a control group comparison is needed to determine efficacy with this population.