Adapted Motivational Interviewing Reduces Substance Use and Sexual Risk Taking Among Partnered Sexual Minority Men...

The development of interventions addressing drug use and sexual HIV infection risk for emerging adult sexual minority men in primary relationships is a public health priority. This study evaluated the efficacy of PARTNER, a 4-session motivational interviewing intervention, to reduce cannabis and illicit drug use, increase preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) uptake, and reduce HIV infection risk.

Staff at Hunter College in New York City, NY, administered study procedures between January 2018 and February 2024.

Participants included 196 HIV-negative cisgender sexual minority men aged 18-34 years who had adult cisgender male partners. All reported recent drug use and condomless anal sex with a casual partner or with a serodiscordant or nonmonogamous main partner. Participants were randomized to PARTNER or a time-and-attention matched education control condition. They completed follow-ups at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months postbaseline.

At immediate follow-up, PARTNER significantly reduced illicit drug use among those who scored ≥1 SD above the mean on relationship satisfaction (B = -1.461; P = 0.013) and those ≥1 SD below the mean on communication skills (B = -1.249; P = 0.050). Effects were moderate in size ( βpartial = 0.584 and 0.510). Although PrEP uptake diminished over time in the control condition, participants assigned to PARTNER had significantly more positive trajectories, indicating increasing PrEP uptake. Between-condition differences in cannabis and sexual HIV infection risk were nonsignificant.

PARTNER achieved moderate immediate reductions in illicit drug use (for those with high levels of relationship satisfaction or low levels of communication skills) and improved trajectories of PrEP uptake compared with a highly competitive control.