Adolescents and young adults with HIV (AYWH) aged 15- 24 years are the fastest-growing population of people living with HIV worldwide. AYWH have worse outcomes along the HIV continuum of care than adults with HIV; HIV/AIDS is the second leading cause of mortality and the fourth leading cause of disability among AYWH worldwide. This study will develop a youth-friendly, mobile health (mHealth) intervention to improve retention in care that has the potential to improve AIDS-related mortality and morbidity among AYWH and decrease onward new transmission, thus contributing towards ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
AYWH who are aged 15-24
AYWH who are new to care (less than or equal to one month in care), or who are re-engaging in care after being lost to follow up for greater or equal to six months.
Fluent in English or Runyankole (the local language)
For aim 3, AYWH who have access (own or shared) to a smartphone
Clinic counsellors who are ≥18 years
Clinic counsellors who have worked at the HIV clinic for ≥ 1 year
Parallel
A social media based intervention
BehavioralWatsApp-based modules to influence retention in care behaviour
The primary intervention outcome will be the acceptability, feasibility of the intervention.
Acceptability will be measured using the Acceptability of Intervention Measure (AIM) and will be considered acceptable if ≥70% (35/50) of intervention participants rate all 4 items on the AIM (a 5-point Likert scale) as "agree" or higher. The intervention will be considered feasible if ≥70% (35/50) of intervention participants rate all 4 items on the Feasibility of Intervention Measure (FIM), (a 5-point Likert scale) as "agree" or higher.
Retention
The secondary outcome of the intervention will be retention in care, which will be assessed at the end of 12 months. This will be defined as the proportion of participants active in care (i.e have not missed a scheduled appointment in the last 12 months) The investigators will compare the proportion of participants actively engaged in care in the immediate intervention and the deferred intervention arm.
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Mbarara University of Science and Technology
Lead sponsor
Fogarty International Center of the National Institute of Health
Collaborator
