Behavioural interventions for HIV prevention work by encouraging people to change behaviours that may make them more susceptible to HIV infection, or more likely to infect another person. There is some evidence that such interventions have led to reductions in HIV risk behaviours, such as having multiple partners, and improvements in other outcomes, such as increased condom use, increased testing, and improved treatment adherence. Behaviour is influenced heavily by socio-cultural contexts and as such, behavioural interventions must be sensitive to these contexts in order to be effective. Examples of behavioural interventions include individual and group level counselling, and providing information and guidelines through community outreach and mass media campaigns.

This paper will provide a synthesis of the evidence on the effectiveness of behavioural interventions for HIV prevention. A review of reviews methodology will be followed to identify relevant primary studies. The strength of the evidence from these reviews will be evaluated and recommendations will be made.