An evidence-based HIV prevention intervention was adapted for Botswana
youth with qualitative interviews, input from an adolescent panel, and
social validation. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 40 boys and
girls ages 13–19. An adolescent panel then drafted scenarios reflecting social
situations described in the interviews that posed risk for HIV. A social
validation sample (N = 65) then indicated the prevalence and difficulty
of each situation. Youth described informational needs, pressures to use
alcohol and drugs, peer pressure for unprotected sex, and intergenerational
sex initiations as risk-priming situations. From 17% to 57% of the social
validation sample had personally experienced the situations drafted by the
adolescent panel. There were no differences in the ratings of boys versus
girls, but youth over age 16 more often reported that they had experienced
these risky situations. The results were embedded into the intervention.
Major changes to the intervention resulted from this three-phase process.