Treatment Advocacy Intervention for HIV-Positive African Americans (TA)

April 7, 2017 updated by: Laura Bogart, Boston Children's Hospital
The investigators hypothesize that participants in the treatment advocacy intervention will show significantly better HIV treatment adherence than will participants in the no-treatment (wait-list) control group.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Compared to other races/ethnicities, African Americans with HIV have lower levels of engagement in care, are less likely to be on antiretroviral treatment (ART), and are more likely to delay care and ART initiation; those on ART are less likely to be adherent at high enough levels for the treatment to be effective. We propose to test an innovative, culturally relevant treatment advocacy (TA) intervention for African Americans with HIV that targets social, cultural, and structural issues contributing to poor HIV treatment behaviors. TA, which has been sustained in many community organizations throughout the HIV epidemic, has never been systematically evaluated. TA facilitates patient navigation through the medical system and provides tailored HIV treatment education and client-centered counseling to improve adherence and engagement in care. TA targets structural issues in healthcare and patients' lives by advocating to providers to improve patient-provider relationships, recommending changes in treatment and/or providers (if needed), and referring patients to mental health and social services. TA is particularly appropriate for African Americans with HIV, who may be mistrustful of providers: it can be conducted outside of the medical system in a safe, neutral community setting by individuals not associated with patients' healthcare. We developed a culturally relevant TA program that additionally discusses factors such as racism that undermine healthcare in Black communities, by acknowledging and directly addressing patients' medical mistrust and stigma as coping strategies that arise in response to oppression. The specific aims are to (1) conduct a randomized controlled trial to examine the effects of a culturally relevant TA program on adherence among African Americans with HIV; (2) identify culturally relevant mediators that explain the effects of treatment advocacy on antiretroviral treatment adherence among African Americans with HIV (e.g., improved behavioral adherence skills, coping with stress/discrimination, mental health, and patient satisfaction; lower levels of HIV misconceptions, internalized HIV stigma/homophobia, medical mistrust, and substance use); and (3) explore culturally relevant moderators of the effects of treatment advocacy on antiretroviral treatment adherence among African Americans with HIV (e.g., access to care, discrimination, incarceration, poverty, social support, spirituality, and trauma). A sample of 200 African Americans with HIV will be randomly assigned to a TA intervention or wait-list control group. Participants will complete surveys at screening, and at 3- and 6-months post-baseline, to assess pre-, intra-, and post-intervention effects on adherence.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

216

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • California
      • Los Angeles, California, United States, 90005
        • AIDS Project Los Angeles

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • 18 years of age or older;
  • self-identify as African American or Black
  • client of APLA
  • they are on ART and missed at least 1 dose in the past month
  • they have a currently detectable or unknown HIV viral load (or have not had a viral load test within the last six months).

Exclusion Criteria:

  • received treatment advocacy in last 6 months

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Wait-list control
Participants in the wait-list control group will not receive the intervention until after the 6-month follow-up assessment.
Experimental: treatment advocacy
Treatment advocacy is a 24-week intervention with booster sessions, including a 4-week intensive intervention followed by a 20-week maintenance period. In the first 4 weeks, all participants receive 4 individual weekly 60-minute sessions and 1 group HIV education session. In the next 20 weeks, all participants receive booster sessions in weeks 12 and 20, and a counselor check-in phone call in week 8 regarding need for new referrals and adherence barriers. Participants who have not demonstrated good adherence (≥90%) during the prior 2 weeks receive ≤4 additional booster sessions at weeks 14, 16, 22, and 24. Clients receive additional linkage with AIDS Project Los Angeles' (APLA) social service programs, as necessary.
Behavioral: Treatment Advocacy
Treatment advocacy is a 24-week intervention with booster sessions, including a 4-week intensive intervention followed by a 20-week maintenance period. In the first 4 weeks, all participants receive 4 individual weekly 60-minute sessions and 1 group HIV education session. In the next 20 weeks, all participants receive booster sessions in weeks 12 and 20, and a counselor check-in phone call in week 8 regarding need for new referrals and adherence barriers. Participants who have not demonstrated good adherence (≥90%) during the prior 2 weeks receive ≤4 additional booster sessions at weeks 14, 16, 22, and 24. Clients receive additional linkage with APLA's social service programs, as necessary.
Other Names:
  • treatment education

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Medication Adherence
Time Frame: Baseline, 1.5 months, 3 months, 4.5 months, and 6 months
We used a repeated measures linear regression modeling continuous adherence with intervention, linear time, and their interaction, and demographic covariates. Continuous adherence is measured as average percentages of doses taken.
Baseline, 1.5 months, 3 months, 4.5 months, and 6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Boston Children's Hospital

Collaborators

National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Laura M Bogart, PhD, RAND

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

April 1, 2013

Primary Completion (Actual)

July 1, 2015

Study Completion (Actual)

December 1, 2015

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 6, 2011

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 6, 2011

First Posted (Estimate)

May 9, 2011

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

April 11, 2017

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 7, 2017

Last Verified

April 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • R01MD006058 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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