Pilot-testing a Group-level Intervention to Reduce Risk for Sexual Transmission of HIV/STIs Among Lesbian, Bisexual and Queer Women and Other Women Who Have Sex With Women in Calgary and Toronto

The limited research that exists suggests that lesbian, bisexual and queer (LBQ) women are at similar risk for sexually transmitted infections (STI) as heterosexual women. This is a particularly important area to address, as literature highlights the convergence of sexual stigma and gender-based sexual violence as elevating LBQ women's risk for HIV and STI infection. However, recent Statistics Canada data indicated that: lesbians reported significantly lower rates of Pap testing than heterosexual or bisexual women; lesbians and bisexual women had higher odds of not having a regular doctor than heterosexual women; and bisexual women had higher reported unmet health care needs than lesbian and heterosexual women. These differences highlight the importance of implementing and evaluating interventions to address STI risk among LBQ women; however, no published study exists of this nature. A STI prevention intervention will be implemented with groups of LBQ women and WSW in Toronto and Calgary. The study has 5 distinct components: 1) key informant interviews to inform the development of the intervention training manual and survey questionnaire, 2) pre-test; 3) intervention (6 group sessions during a weekend retreat); 4) post-test directly following intervention, and 5) follow-up post-tests at 6 and 12 weeks. The study hypothesis is that, compared to pre-intervention, participants who receive the group-based intervention will report an increase in sexually transmitted infections (STI) knowledge post-intervention. The secondary hypotheses are that, compared with pre-intervention, participants will demonstrate higher mean scores of (a) safer sex self-efficacy; (b) STI testing; (c) safer sex practices; (d) resilient coping, (e) self-esteem, (f) social provisions, (g) community connectedness and (h) access to health care. We anticipated that compared to pre-intervention, participants post-intervention would report lower mean scores of (a) depression and (b) internalized stigma.