A Multicomponent Intervention to Increase HIV Risk Perceptions and PrEP Initiation Among Black Men Who Have Sex With Men

March 13, 2025 updated by: Derek Dangerfield II, George Washington University
Tragically, HIV infections among Black sexual minority men (BSMM) in the U.S. persist. Despite the availability of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention, effective uptake among BSMM remains low. It is imperative to support PrEP initiation among this group. The proposed multi-component interventional study is designed to increase HIV risk perceptions and subsequent PrEP initiation through the use of our team's existing mobile application called PrEPme and a peer change agent (PCA) to record and review sexual risk behaviors and subsequent PrEP interest. Few have studied whether reviewing sexual diaries with a PCA increases HIV risk perceptions and PrEP initiation among BSMM. This strategy will allow BSMM who are not using PrEP to record their sexual behaviors using a PrEPme-based diary, review their sexual histories with a PCA, and assess PrEP interest. The PCA will be trained in motivational interviewing techniques to facilitate discussions. The PCA will provide HIV prevention education, sexual risk evaluation, and PrEP navigation. BSMM who become interested in initiating PrEP will be referred to our team's ongoing PrEP tele-medicine study (PI: Jason Farley, co-investigator) or other PrEP care services in the greater Baltimore area. The proposed intervention targets a high priority population in HIV prevention and mitigates structural barriers to PrEP uptake such as perceived judgement, stigma, and discrimination from clinical providers.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

The proposed multicomponent intervention will use our team's existing mobile smartphone app called PrEPme along with a peer change agent (PCA) to record and review sexual risk behaviors among 80 HIV-negative BSMM. PrEPme is an existing HIPAA compliant mobile app that is currently available in the mobile application "store" and offers PrEP navigation services in Baltimore and throughout the State of Maryland. Currently, the app contains a diary that allows users to record and review their sexual risk behaviors using a weekly "timeline" including number and gender of partners along with substance use. At the end of each week, the dashboard provides a weekly review of sexual history for four weeks until the history is displayed as a monthly overview. The app also allows users to chat with our case management team to learn more about PrEP, obtain adequate insurance coverage, and get help scheduling appointments at any time. The proposed intervention leverages the current features of the app as part of the multi-component strategy. In the intervention, pre-post assessments will include demographic information, sexual behavior, substance use, mental health (e.g., depression, gay community affiliation), and PrEP use history. HIV risk perception will be measured using an 8-item scale. The PCA will be trained to review sexual histories, highlight HIV and sexually transmitted infection risks, provide HIV prevalence information, deliver PrEP information, and encourage PrEP uptake. This intervention phase will use a single-group pretest post-test design to explore feasibility and findings will be used as the foundation for an efficacy trial among a larger sample of BSMM in different locales.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

69

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
    • Maryland
      • Baltimore, Maryland, United States, 21205
        • Johns Hopkins School of Nursing

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

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • ≥18 years of age
  • Identify as cis-gender man
  • Self-reporting being HIV-negative or status unknown
  • Identify as Black or African American
  • Report anal intercourse with ≥ 1 male partner in the past 12 months
  • Has mobile smartphone
  • Not currently taking Truvada or Descovy as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP)

Exclusion Criteria:

  • ≤18 years of age
  • Identify as woman or transgender
  • Self-reporting being HIV-positive
  • Identify as race/ethnicity other than Black or African American
  • Report no anal intercourse with male partner in the past 12 months
  • Report not having a mobile smartphone
  • Currently taking Truvada or Descovy as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP)

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: Prevention
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: BSMM
Intervention arm will include motivational interview-consistent discussion with a peer change agent and use of a mobile application to record and review sexual risk behaviors with participants.
Behavioral: Multi-component intervention strategy
Multi-component intervention strategy using a peer change agent and mobile application to record and review sexual risk behaviors

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
HIV risk perception as assessed by the Perceived Risk of HIV Scale
Time Frame: 1 month
The Perceived Risk of HIV Scale is an 8-item scale with each item being scored from 1-5 (e.g., "Extremely likely" to "Extremely Unlikely," "Rarely" to "All of the time," etc.). Overall score ranges from 10 to 40 where higher scores signify increased perception of risk.
1 month

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Proportion of participants who express interest in PrEP initiation
Time Frame: 1 month
The proportion of participants who express interest in initiating PrEP at month 1 will be assessed.
1 month

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

George Washington University

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Derek Dangerfield II, PhD, Johns Hopkins University

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 (Actual)

September 5, 2020

Primary Completion (Actual)

June 2, 2022

Study Completion (Actual)

June 2, 2022

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

August 26, 2020

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 26, 2020

First Posted (Actual)

August 31, 2020

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

March 25, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 13, 2025

Last Verified

March 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Other Study ID Numbers

  • IRB00241244

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

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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