MindBodyU—Improving the HIV Care Continuum for Youth in the Deep South through mHealth Technology
(NIH K01MH118073; PI: Dr. Harrison)
The MindBodyU Project is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The goal of this project is to understand the challenges that youth living with HIV (YLHIV) in South Carolina face as they move through the HIV Care Continuum and to use these findings to develop a novel mobile Health (mHealth) intervention called MindBodyU that can help youth engage in their HIV care, adhere to their HIV medicines, and improve their mental health.
The three aims of the project are:
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#1
Examine psychosocial, behavioral, and socio-cultural barriers to engagement/retention in care and ART adherence for YLHIV in South Carolina through qualitative assessment, including in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 30 YLHIV and focus groups with 20 key stakeholders (i.e., 10 HIV care providers, 10 AIDS Service Organization [ASO] staff) from South Carolina
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#2
Use findings to develop and pre-test a tailored, multi-component mHealth intervention to improve engagement/retention in care and adherence among YLHIV in the Deep South by integrating several promising strategies (i.e., interactive training modules, adherence notifications, virtual goal-setting/monitoring), with the development process guided by the Information-Motivation-Behavior model, Social Cognitive Theory, and the Persuasive Systems Design framework
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#3
Evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, usability, and preliminary outcomes of the mHealth intervention by enrolling 40 YLHIV in South Carolina in a six-month quasiexperimental pre-/post- evaluation with primary outcome data including clinic visit adherence and rates of viral suppression.