Health education about AIDS among seropositive blood donors

The New York Blood Center is developing a health education and psychosocial support program for blood donors who are notified that they are HIV antibody positive. The goals of that program are: to provide accurate and intelligible information about the test results to notified donors; to encourage behavior that will reduce the likelihood of spreading the virus; to encourage notified donors to behave in ways that will reduce the probability that they will develop AIDS; and to provide support and facilitate functional coping responses. This article reviews the theoretical and empirical work which informs the intervention program, and it describes how the program is being implemented.