Helping teens in HIV-affected families pays off

For adolescents whose parents have HIV, programs designed to help them cope with a parent's illness may improve their own health and well-being, California researchers report.

"Psychosocial interventions can improve health outcomes, and the impact lasts at least six years for adolescent children of parents living with HIV," lead author Dr. Mary Jane Rotheram-Borus of the University of California at Los Angeles told Reuters Health.

Besides helping individual teens, such programs may be beneficial to society at large, according to Rotheram-Borus. She noted that teens who participated in the coping program were less likely to become teen parents and to go on public assistance.

An estimated 125,000 children in the U.S. have lost a parent to AIDS, with about 15,000 parents dying each year. At least 750,000 children are living with a parent who has HIV.

Working with the New York City Division of AIDS Services, Rotheram-Borus studied 395 adolescents who had a parent living with HIV. Most of the children came from homes headed by an African American or Latino single mother.

About half of the families were randomly assigned to a program designed to help adolescents learn how to cope with a parent's illness. Teens were taught skills on how to deal with negative emotions, on planning for their future and on preventing risky sexual activity and drug use.

Other families were assigned a social worker and received the usual services provided to families affected by HIV, but they did not participate in the coping program.

Six years into the study, a little more than half of parents had died. Despite losing a parent, teens who went though the coping program were doing much better than other teens in several ways, the researchers report in the journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Youths who participated in the program were significantly more likely to be in school or to have a job. They were also less likely to be on welfare than those who had not gone through the program.

Teens in the coping program also reported healthier romantic relationships. Compared to those who had not participated in the program, they reported better problem-solving skills in their relationships. They also tended to have higher expectations of their romantic partners.

In addition, veterans of the coping program were somewhat less likely to become teen parents.

But the children of HIV-positive parents are not the only ones to benefit from the program, according to Rotheram-Borus. Last year, she noted, the researchers published a report showing that parents who participated in the program were less likely to relapse into substance abuse after 4 years.

The benefits may even pass on to the next generation, according to the UCLA researcher. "We also have under review an article that shows that the babies of the adolescent children of parents living with HIV are better adjusted if psychosocial interventions are delivered to families," Rotheram-Borus said.