TY  - JOUR
AU  - Dangerfield II, Derek T
AU  - Anderson, Janeane N
AU  - Wylie, Charleen
AU  - Bluthenthal, Ricky
AU  - Beyrer, Chris
AU  - Farley, Jason E
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/6/11
TI  - A Multicomponent Intervention (POSSIBLE) to Improve Perceived Risk for HIV Among Black Sexual Minority Men: Feasibility and Preliminary Effectiveness Pilot Study
JO  - JMIR Hum Factors
SP  - e54739
VL  - 11
KW  - pre-exposure prophylaxis
KW  - PrEP
KW  - sexual health
KW  - peers
KW  - apps
KW  - community
KW  - mobile phone
KW  - HIV
KW  - sexual minority
KW  - minority communities
KW  - minority
KW  - Black
KW  - African American
KW  - patient education
KW  - self-monitoring
KW  - treatment adherence
KW  - treatment participation
KW  - community health
KW  - mobile health
KW  - digital health
KW  - digital technology
KW  - digital interventions
KW  - smartphones
AB  - Background: Increased pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use is urgently needed to substantially decrease HIV incidence among Black sexual minority men. Low perceived risk for HIV (PRH) is a key unaddressed PrEP barrier for Black sexual minority men. Peers and smartphone apps are popular intervention tools to promote community health behaviors, but few studies have used these together in a multicomponent strategy. Therefore, we designed a multicomponent intervention called POSSIBLE that used an existing smartphone app called PrEPme (Emocha Mobile Health, Inc) and a peer change agent (PCA) to increase PRH as a gateway to PrEP. Objective: This paper aims to describe the feasibility and preliminary impact of POSSIBLE on PRH and willingness to accept a PrEP referral among Black sexual minority men. Methods: POSSIBLE was a theoretically guided, single-group, 2-session pilot study conducted among Black sexual minority men from Baltimore, Maryland between 2019 and 2021 (N=69). POSSIBLE integrated a PCA and the PrEPme app that allows users to self-monitor sexual risk behaviors and chat with the in-app community health worker to obtain PrEP service information. PRH was assessed using the 8-item PRH scale before and after baseline and follow-up study visits. At the end of each study visit, the PCA referred interested individuals to the community health worker to learn more about PrEP service options. Results: The average age of participants was 32.5 (SD 8.1, range 19-62) years. In total, 55 (80%) participants were retained for follow-up at month 1. After baseline sessions, 29 (42%) participants were willing to be referred to PrEP services, 20 (69%) of those confirmed scheduled appointments with PrEP care teams. There were no statistically significant differences in PRH between baseline and follow-up visits (t122=–1.36; P=.17). Conclusions: We observed no statistically significant improvement in PRH between baseline and month 1. However, given the high retention rate and acceptability, POSSIBLE may be feasible to implement. Future research should test a statistically powered peer-based approach on PrEP initiation among Black sexual minority men. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04533386; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04533386 
SN  - 2292-9495
UR  - https://humanfactors.jmir.org/2024/1/e54739
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/54739
UR  - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38861707
DO  - 10.2196/54739
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/54739
ER  -