HealthCall: Smartphone Enhancement of Brief Interventions to Improve HIV Medication Adherence Among Patients in HIV Care

The objective of the current study is to evaluate the efficacy of HealthCall to improve ART ad herence among PLWH who drink heavily when paired with two brief interventions: the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA) Clinician’s Guide (CG) or Motivational Interviewing (MI). Therefore, we conducted a 1:1:1 randomized trial among 114 participants with alcohol dependence at a large urban HIV clinic. Participants were randomized to one of three groups: (1) CG only (n = 37), (2) CG and HealthCall (n = 38), or (3) MI and HealthCall (n = 39). Baseline interventions targeting drinking reduction and ART adherence were ~ 25 min, with brief (10–15 min) b ooster sessions at 30 and 60 days. The outcome was ART adherence assessed using unannounced phone pill-count method (possible adherence scores: 0–100%) at 30-day, 60-day, 3, 6, and 12 months. Analyses were conducted using generalized linear mixed models with pre-planned contrasts. Of the 11 4 enrolled patients, 58% were male, 75% identified as Black/African American, 28% were Hispanic, and 62% had less than a high school education. The mean age was 47.5 years (standard deviation [SD]  10 years) and the mean number of years since they were diagnosed with HIV was 18.6 (SD 7.6). Parti cipants assigned to HealthCall to extend the CG had increased levels of ART adherence at 60-day and 6-month follow-up (compared to CG only), although there was no statistically significant difference by...
Source: AIDS and Behavior - Category: Infectious Diseases Source Type: research