Background Youth are using social media regularly and represent a group facing substantial risk for sexually transmitted infection (STI). Although there is evidence that the Internet can be used effectively in supporting healthy sexual behavior, this hasn't yet extended to social networking sites. Purpose To determine whether STI prevention messages delivered via Facebook are efficacious in preventing increases in sexual risk behavior at 2 and 6 months. Design Cluster RCT, October 2010–May 2011. Setting/participants Individuals (seeds) recruited in multiple settings (online, via newspaper ads and face-to-face) were asked to recruit three friends, who in turn recruited additional friends, extending three waves from the seed. Seeds and waves of friends were considered networks and exposed to either the intervention or control condition. Intervention Exposure to Just/Us, a Facebook page developed with youth input, or to control content on 18–24 News, a Facebook page with current events for 2 months. Main outcome measures Condom use at last sex and proportion of sex acts protected by condoms. Repeated measures of nested data were used to model main effects of exposure to Just/Us and time by treatment interaction. Results 1578 participants enrolled, with 14% Latino and 35% African-American; 75% of participants completed at least one study follow-up. Time by treatment effects were observed at 2 months for condom use (intervention 68% vs control 56%, p=0.04) and proportion of sex acts protected by condoms (intervention 63% vs control 57%, p=0.03) where intervention participation reduced the tendency for condom use to decrease over time. No effects were seen at 6 months. Conclusions Social networking sites may be venues for efficacious health education interventions. More work is needed to understand what elements of social media are compelling, how network membership influences effects, and whether linking social media to clinical and social services can be beneficial. Trial registration This study is registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov NCT00725959.

The aim of this study was to examine the ways in which adults with borderline personality disorder (BPD) experience and manage their feelings. Responses of 30 subjects who met the criteria for BPD on the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R were compared with 40 non-BPD controls on the following measures of emotion processing and affect regulation: 1) level of emotional awareness, 2) capacity to coordinate mixed valence feelings, 3) accuracy at identifying facial expressions of emotion, and 4) intensity of response to negative emotions. The results showed significant differences between the two groups on all measures. The borderlines showed significantly lower levels of emotional awareness, less capacity to coordinate mixed valence feelings, lower accuracy at recognizing facial expressions of emotion, and more intense responses to negative emotions than the nonborderline controls. The findings corroborate clinical observations of borderline patients' difficulties in regulating emotions. The implications of the results for the therapeutic management of BPD patients are discussed.

In response to rising gonorrhea rates among African American youth in San Francisco, Calif, Internet Sexuality Information Services, Inc, in partnership with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, developed SEXINFO, a sexual health text messaging service. SEXINFO is an information and referral service that can be accessed by texting "SEXINFO" to a 5-digit number from any wireless phone. A consortium of community organizations, religious groups, and health agencies assisted with identifying culturally appropriate local referral services. We conducted focus group sessions among youth aged 15 to 19 years to discuss the viability of the service. Usage of the service has been greater than expected, and an initial evaluation to assess the impact of SEXINFO on increasing access to sexual health services among at-risk adolescents has had promising results.

The Internet, particularly online social networks, can be an effective and culturally relevant communications channel to engage hard-to-reach populations with HIV prevention interventions. This article describes the process of conducting formative research on a popular social networking site, MySpace, in an effort to involve youth of color in design of programmatic content and formats for an Internet intervention. We discovered that asynchronous focus groups worked well to engage hard-to-reach populations. The synchronous groups allowed maximum participation and easy transcription for analysis. The authors found that using a social networking site to conduct formative research was useful to guide the development of a social networking intervention for youth of color. Researchers need to be flexible in adapting their research methods and interventions to the context of online social networking sites to most effectively engage hard-to-reach populations.