Overview
Men who are living with HIV and use stimulants face many challenges and barriers that may interfere with remembering to take their HIV medication. Forgetting to take HIV medication puts men living with HIV at a greater risk of becoming virally unsuppressed. Researchers are doing this study to test if a remote intervention can help participants improve remembering to take their HIV medications and reduce the HIV viral load among men living with HIV who use stimulants.
Description
A resurgent stimulant epidemic among men living with HIV could compromise the U.S. Ending the HIV Epidemic goals by interfering with HIV care engagement, adherence, and virologic suppression among men living with HIV. Prominent multi-level factors interfere with HIV virologic suppression for men living with HIV, particularly among those who use stimulants. This study is a nested randomized clinical trial to test a multi-component intervention to improve virologic suppression, adherence, and stimulant use among men living with HIV who use stimulants. The intervention, known as reSTART, will combine an evidence-based positive affect mobile health (mHealth) intervention, a home-based urine point-of-care test for adherence self-monitoring, and motivational interviewing and messages. The goal of the reSTART intervention is to improve or maintain adherence to HIV medications and reduce stimulant use. By this high-impact study's end, the investigators will have identified the impact of a multi-component reSTART mHealth intervention using novel point-of-care adherence self-monitoring on HIV virologic suppression and stimulant use.
Eligibility
Inclusion Criteria:
- Prescribed antiretroviral therapy (ART) with a tenofovir-based regimen.
- Documented virologic non-suppression, urine tenofovir testing without tenofovir detected, or self-reported adherence \<100%.
- Reports stimulant use.
- Has a mailing address within the U.S.
- Currently has a smartphone with photo capabilities.
Exclusion Criteria:
- Have any health condition that may interfere with participation or the ability to provide informed consent, including any debilitating or life-threatening conditions.
- Not prescribed ART.
- Unwilling to perform urine self-testing or to attend a local Quest site for viral load monitoring.
- Unable to provide a hair sample of \~50-100 strands of hair that are non-gray, not bleached, and at least 1cm in length
