1 s2.0 S0001691822002724 Main
1 s2.0 S0001691822002724 Main
1 s2.0 S0001691822002724 Main
Acta
Psychologica
ARTICLEINFO
ABSTRACT
Keywords:
HIV prevention intervention Impact Purpose: Interventions focused on promoting resilience or protective
Resilience factors of youth have been proposed as a strategy for reducing risky
Risky sexual behaviour South Africa behaviours associated with HIV infection among youth; however few
Youth studies have explored their effectiveness. This study assessed the
impact of a resilience-based HIV prevention intervention (You Only
Live Once) on risky sexual behaviours, resilience and protective
factors of youth.
Methods: A one-group pretest-posttest design was used. One hundred
and ninety-seven youth aged 15–24 years
were conveniently recruited from a non-profit organisation in Maluti-a-
Phofung Local Municipality, South Africa and participated in a 12-
session, resilience-based HIV intervention delivered over a 1-week
period by trained adult facilitators. Outcomes of interest were
assessed at baseline and 3-month follow-up using validated risky
sexual behaviour measures, and Child and Youth Resilience
Measure. Mixed effect logistic and linear regression models were
formulated to assess the impact of the intervention on risky sexual
behaviours; resilience and protective factors respectively.
Results: Compared to baseline, participants at 3-month follow-up
were 68 % less likely to have unprotected sex, 22 % less likely to
regret their decision to engage in sexual activity and 0.4 % less likely
to be pregnant or made someone pregnant. Conversely, participants
at the 3-month follow-up had a higher propensity to engage in multiple
sexual partnerships, transactional sex and intergenerational sex than
baseline. Participants at 3-month follow-up had significant
improvements in their scores of resilience, individual capacities and
contextual factors that facilitate a sense of belonging (p < 0.05).
Conclusion: You Only Live Once intervention appeared to have
mitigated some risky sexual behaviours, and improved resilience and
protective factors over a 3-month period. These findings suggest that
the intervention has ability to reduce risky sexual behaviours
associated with HIV, and improve resilience and protective factors
among youth in South Africa. Further evaluation of the intervention
with a rigorous study design, larger sample size and longer period for
follow-up is warranted.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103757
Received 29 September 2021; Received in revised form 12 July 2022; Accepted 21 September 2022
Available online 28 September 2022
0001-6918/© 2022 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
F. Mbengo Acta Psychologica 230 (2022)
attendance, unemployment and poverty, which impact their ability to 2010). The
adopt healthy sexual behaviours (Khuzwayo & Taylor, 2018; Mabaso
et al., 2021; Visser, 2017). In addition, engagement in risky sexual be- intervention contains 12 sessions that promote individual protective
haviours, such as non-condom use, early sexual debut, multiple sexual factors: self-identity; self-esteem; self-efficacy/confidence [sessions 1,
partnerships, intergenerational sex, transactional sex, unintended 2 and 6]; communication skills [sessions 3 and 11]; decision-making
pregnancies and sex under the influence of drugs or alcohol increases skills [session 12]; skills in dealing with emotional and social
the risk of HIV infection among youth (Visser, 2017; Zgambo et al., challenges [session 9]; and knowledge on sexual health, HIV,
2018; Zgambo et al., 2022). unintended preg- nancies, contraception, sexual and reproductive
To curb the spread of HIV among youth, effective HIV prevention rights, risky sexual behaviour [sessions 4, 5, 7 and 8], and
strategies focused on reducing risky sexual behaviours are urgently environmental protective factors: improved relationships with parents,
needed. However, systematic reviews suggest that interventions tar- peers and community members [session 10]; and access to basic
geting youth are more successful at changing non-behavioural out- services [sessions 4, 5, 7, 8, 9] (Live- Moya, 2018; South African
comes, such as sexual health knowledge, and less successful at Department of Social Development, 2016). In this study, the
changing behavioural outcomes, such as multiple sexual partnerships intervention was delivered in two sessions per day
(Mwale & Muula, 2017; Sani et al., 2016; Scott-Sheldon et al., 2013). with each session lasting 1–2 h, over a period of one week. Five
The limited intervention impact on behavioural outcomes has been trained adult facilitators delivered the sessions in a mixed-gender
attributed to the failure of the interventions to successfully address group format
numerous factors influencing risky sexual behaviours among young of 15–20 youth using a variety of participatory approaches, such as
people (Visser, 2017). Resilience-based interventions have been group discussions and dialogues, participant reflections, role-plays,
suggested as a multifaceted approach to avert risky sexual behaviours short seminars and take-home activities. To enhance session atten-
linked to HIV infection among youth (Fergus & Zimmerman, 2005; dance, the sessions were conducted on days and times agreed
LoVette et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2015). Resilience theory suggests between the youth and facilitators, and in venues located in the same
that individual protective factors, such as sexual health knowledge, and neigh- bourhood where the youth and facilitators live (mostly in
environmental protective factors, such as parental support promote facilitators' homes).
resilience in people and prevent them from engaging in risky sexual
behaviours (Fergus & Zimmerman, 2005; LoVette et al., 2019; Wang et 2.2. Study design
al., 2015). Previous research has estab- lished positive associations
between resilience or protective factors and healthy sexual behaviours This study was part of a larger project evaluating the You Only
(Govender et al., 2019; Hodder et al., 2018; McNair et al., 2018; Pilgrim Live Once intervention using a mixed methods approach. The current
& Blum, 2012). Research from United States of America provides study reports findings from the quantitative component which utilised a
evidence for the impact of resilience-based HIV prevention one- group pretest-posttest design to assess the impact of the
interventions in reducing young people's risky sexual be- haviours intervention on risky sexual behaviours, resilience and protective
(Sieving et al., 2011, 2013). factors. A one-group pretest-posttest design is used when the study
In South Africa, little is known about the effectiveness of resilience- seeks to examine cau- sality between an intervention and outcome
based HIV prevention interventions aimed at reducing risky sexual be- (Knapp, 2016).
haviours among youth. To address this gap, this study sought to
evaluate the impact of a resilience-based HIV prevention intervention 2.3. Setting
(You Only Live Once) on risky sexual behaviours, resilience and
protective factors among youth in South Africa. It was hypothesized The study was conducted at a not-for-profit organisation imple-
that the intervention would (1) reduce risky sexual behaviours and (2) menting the You Only Live Once intervention in Maluti-a-Phofung
improve resilience and protective factors at 3-month follow-up. Local Municipality, South Africa. The organisation provides a range of
free services, including HIV prevention programmes to vulnerable
2. Materials and methods children
and youth based on the South African Children’s Act [No.38 of, 2005).
2.1. Intervention The You Only Live Once intervention was first introduced at the
orga-
You Only Live Once curriculum was developed in 2016 by the South nisation in 2017. Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality is located within
African Department of Social Development (South African Department the Thabo Mofutsanyana District in the Free State Province. It is
of Social Development, 2016). Over the past few years, South African bordered by the KwaZulu-Natal Province to the east, Dihlabeng Local
Department of Social Development in partnership with the South Afri- Municipality to the west, the Kingdom of Lesotho to the south and
can National AIDS Council, Government Capacity Building and Support Phumelela Local Municipality to the north. The municipality is about
programme, community-based organisations and not-for-profit organi- 4421 km2 in size and has a population of about 336,000 people with
sations has implemented the You Only Live Once intervention in most black South Africans of the BaSotho tribe comprising majority of the
geographical areas of South Africa with high HIV prevalence (Kgaphola total population (Municipal Demarcation Board, 2018). Youth below
& Jacob, 2020; LiveMoya, 2018). The intervention targets youth (15–24 the age of 20 years constitute nearly half of the municipality's total
years) to reduce new HIV infections by building resilience or promoting popu- lation (Statistics South Africa, 2021b). The municipality has high
protective factors that enable them to overcome multi-level factors levels of poverty and unemployment (Statistics South Africa, 2021b).
which influence risky sexual behaviours (South African Department of Maluti-a- Phofung Local Municipality had HIV prevalence of 11.3 % in
Social Development, 2016). You Only Live Once intervention is based 2017 (Free State Provincial Council on AIDS, 2018).
on an integrated theoretical framework that comprises aspects of the
socio- ecological model and theory of change (LiveMoya, 2018). The 2.4. Participants
socio- ecological model provides a framework for understanding multi-
level factors influencing risky sexual behaviours among youth A convenience sampling approach was used to recruit 197 partici-
(Kaufman et al., 2014; Max et al., 2015). The theory of change is a pants from 216 youth who had been identified by the not-for-profit
device for formulating solutions to complex social problems and organisation to participate in the You Only Live Once
describes the causal mechanism on how the intervention's activities will intervention
result in achieving expected outcomes (Akintobi et al., 2016; Brest, [Fig. 1]. To be included in the study, youth had to be: (1) 15–24 years;
(2)F.Never
Mbengo
participated in the You Only Live Once intervention before; Acta Psychologica 230 (2022)
(3) Able to read, understand and write English and/or Sesotho; (4)
Willing and able to provide informed consent/assent. According to
Krejcie and Morgan (1970)'s method of determining sample size for
research pur- poses, the sample size required for a population of 216
youth is 140 youth. Anticipating a 40 % attrition to follow-up, the initial
sample size would increase to 196 youth. Therefore, the sample
size of 197
F. Mbengo Acta Psychologica 230 (2022)
2.5. Procedure
The study was approved by the Edith Cowan University Human Sesotho and
Research Ethics Committee in Australia (reference number 2019– 10 youth who were not part of the You Only Live Once intervention to
00925) and Human Sciences Research Council Research Ethics ensure its relevance to the South African socio-cultural context.
Committee in South Africa (reference number 5/19/02/20). Permission Participants were assured of their privacy, confidentiality, and their
was also obtained from the management of the not-for-profit right to withdraw from the study at any time without penalty. To
organisation. enhance anonymity, participants were instructed to write same unique
Five You Only Live Once facilitators at the non-for-profit identifiable number (e.g., date of birth and identity numbers) on the
organisation were approached face-to-face by the principal researcher questionnaire instead of their real names each time they completed
(FM) to assist him with participant recruitment. The facilitators were the questionnaire. To reduce social desirability bias, participants were
briefed on the study objectives and recruitment procedures. The informed about the importance of responding honestly as their re-
principal researcher and facilitators explained the study to the youth sponses would be used to create interventions for other youth.
before giving them information sheets and consent/assent forms. Youth Measures to prevent the spread of Coronavirus disease of 2019
who were inter- ested in the study were requested to contact the (COVID-19) such as mask wearing, social distancing and hand
principal researcher, and an appointment was made to meet them in washing were adhered to. Participants received no financial incentives
their preferred location. Participants aged 18 years and older were for completing the ques- tionnaire. However, refreshments were
asked to provide written informed consent, and those below 18 years provided to the participants at the end of each session and a
were requested to give written assent and parental consent if they certificate of attendance given at the end of the intervention.
agreed to participate.
Data collection was conducted from October 2020 to February
2021. Participants completed a self-report questionnaire at baseline (n 2.6. Study measures
= 197) and 3-month follow-up (n = 176) [Fig. 1]. The
questionnaire took The questionnaire was made up of three sections which included;
approximately 15–20 min to complete. The completion of the ques- sociodemographic characteristics of participants; and measures of
tionnaires took place at the intervention venue and was supervised by risky sexual behaviours, resilience and protective factors.
the principal researcher. Participants read and answered the question-
naire on their own. In South Africa, 94 % of the youth are able to 2.6.1. Sociodemographic characteristics
speak, write and read in their respective languages (Statistics South This section collected information on variables, such as age,
Africa, 2016, 2017). Thus, the questionnaire was written in both gender, race, religion, level of education, living arrangement and
F. Mbengo Acta Psychologica 230 (2022)
number of You
F. Mbengo Acta Psychologica 230 (2022)
Research Council, 2017; Reddy et al., 2010, 2013; Shisana et al., n (%) n (%) n (%)
2014; Visser, 2017) were used to collect data on risky sexual Gender 1.173 0.279
behaviours.
Participants were asked the age Male 77 (39.1 67 (38.1 10 (47.6
of sexual debut (<15 years/15 %) %) 108 %)
Female 119 11 (52.4
years and more/never had sex).
Youth who reported their age of
sexual debut as
<15 years/15 years and more
were regarded as sexually
active.
Furthermore, participants responded
questions on non-condom use at to (60.4 %) (61.4 %) %)
Transgender
last sex, multiple sexual 1 (0.5 %) 1 (0.6 %)
partnerships, pregnancy Age 28.489 0.001
incidence, sexual
regret, transactional sex and 15–17 years 110 100 14 (66.7
intergenerational sex in the last (55.8 %) (56.8 %) %)
three months. A positive answer 18–20 years 53 (26.9 47 (26.7 4 (19.1
to each of the questions was %) %) %)
21–23 years 28 (14.2 23 (13.1 2 (9.5 %)
given a score of one. %) %)
Fig. 2. Distribution of individual's response to the You Only Live Once intervention across resilience and protective factors.
Table 3
Mixed effect model estimates for measuring the impact of the intervention on resilience and protective factors, adjusting for key demographic variables.
Resilience Individual capacities
Relationship with primary caregiver Contextual factors that facilitate a sense of belonging
Mean (se) p-value Mean (se) p-value Mean (se) p-value Mean (se) p-value
Measure Baseline ¡2.966 (1.182) 0.013 ¡1.580 (0.545) 0.004 —0.028 (0.396) 0.943 —1.258 (0.460) 0.007
3-month follow-up (Ref) (Ref) (Ref) (Ref)
Gender Male (Ref) (Ref) (Ref) (Ref)
Female 0.889 (2.079) 0.670 —0.328 (0.894) 0.714 —0.030 (0.769) 0.969 1.186 (0.766) 0.124
Age
Religion
F. Mbengo Acta Psychologica 230 (2022)
Transgender 4.828 (13.467) 0.720 —1.351 (5.788) 0.816
4.007 (4.983) 0.422 0.575 (4.965) 0.908
Education level 15–17 (Ref) (Ref)
(Ref) (Ref)
18–20 —0.771 (2.365) 0.745 —0.399 (1.016) 0.695
—1.287 (0.863) 0.138 0.985 (0.876) 0.263
21–23 —0.772 (3.093) 0.803 0.013 (1.328) 0.992
—1.409 (1.129) 0.214 0.805 (1.146) 0.483
Living arrangement 24 and above —5.833 (5.621) 0.301 —2.585 (2.414) 0.286
¡4.253 (2.051) 0.040 0.823 (2.083) 0.693
Christianity (Ref) (Ref)
(Ref) (Ref)
Islam ¡31.528 (13.155) 0.018 ¡12.579 (5.685) 0.028
—6.350 (4.912) 0.198 —12.693 (4.889) 0.010
Traditional 1.845 (2.237) 0.411 0.613 (0.967) 0.527
0.852 (0.835) 0.309 0.222 (0.832) 0.790
Other —17.028 (13.155) 0.197 —5.079 (5.685) 0.373
—7.850 (4.911) 0.112 —4.193 (4.889) 0.392
No formal education (Ref) (Ref)
(Ref) (Ref)
Primary education —0.313 (7.482) 0.967 —0.219 (3.221) 0.946
1.188 (2.762) 0.668 —1.781 (2.765) 0.520
Secondary education —3.268 (6.792) 0.631 —0.322 (2.924) 0.912
—0.473 (2.508) 0.851 —2.848 (2.510) 0.258
Tertiary education —2.929 (7.250) 0.687 0.234 (3.121) 0.940
—0.984 (2.677) 0.714 —2.141 (2.680) 0.425
Both parents (Ref) (Ref)
(Ref) (Ref)
One parent 0.563 (2.241) 0.802 0.594 (0.969) 0.541
—0.849 (0.783) 0.280 0.800 (0.839) 0.342
Another relative —0.456 (3.435) 0.985 0.493 (1.486) 0.740
—1.582 (1.200) 0.189 0.731 (1.287) 0.571
A friend —12.681 (6.849) 0.066 —1.832 (2.962) 0.537
¡11.707 (2.393) <0.001 0.306 (2.565) 0.905
Alone —2.5-056 (6.849) 0.764 1.793 (2.962) 0.546
¡4.967 (2.393) 0.040 1.556 (2.565) 0.545
Other 14.819 (9.528) 0.122 7.293 (4.121) 0.079
2.043 (3.329) 0.540 5.431 (3.568) 0.130
Bold text indicates significance effect at 5 % level of significance. Italicised text indicates a trend towards significance.
behaviours. Additionally, the intervention's lack of content addressing This research was financially supported by the Edith Cowan Uni-
structural drivers of risky sexual behaviours among youth (Dana et al., versity, Australia through a Higher Degree by Research Scholarship
2019; Sathiyasusuman, 2015; Onoya et al., 2015) could have contrib-
uted to the limited impact of the intervention on risky sexual behav- awarded to the first author. The funder had no role in the study con-
iours. Addressing structural determinants of young people's risky ceptualisation and design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation
sexual behaviours, such as poverty, unemployment and harmful social of data; in the writing of the article; and in the decision to submit the
norms improves the impact of the intervention in reducing risky sexual article for publication.
be- haviours (Baird et al., 2012; Mavedzenge et al., 2014; Stoner et al.,
2020; Svanemyr et al., 2015). Declaration of competing interest
The present study had methodological limitations which may have
contributed to the limited impact of the intervention. The length for The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
follow-up was short (three months), and because health-related behav-
iours are known to take time to adopt and become routine (Rogers, Acknowledgements
2003), it is possible that the short duration for follow-up could have
contributed to the limited impact of the intervention on risky sexual The authors express sincere gratitude to the research participants
behaviours. The use of a one-group pretest-posttest design which does for their informed consent/assent, and management of the non-profit
not have a comparison group and control other factors beside the organisation for granting permission to undertake the study.
intervention, such as history, maturation and testing effects could have
mitigated the true impact of the intervention. Moreover, the study References
findings are based on self-reported data, therefore because of the sen-
sitive nature of some questions, some participants may have provided Akintobi, H. T., Trotter, J., Zellner, T., Lenoir, S., Evans, D., Rollins, L., & Miller, A. (2016).
socially desirable answers. Furthermore, the sample size used to Outcomes of a behavioral intervention to increase condom use and reduce HIV risk
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could have limited the study's statistical power to detect effects of the
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limitations on the impact of the intervention, the present study had 10.1016/S0140-6736(11)61709-1
Brest, P. (2010). The power of theories of change. Retrieved from Stanford Social Innovation
other limitations. A convenience sampling approach was used to recruit Review, 8(2), 47–51 https://sc4ccm.jsi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016