Engaging Care for HIV-infected Adolescent Females.

The proposed multi-site, longitudinal study will examine the correlation of substance use, mental health disorders, and social networks to engagement in care for HIV-infected adolescent females, aged 13 years, 0 months - 23 years, 11 months, and suggest ways to promote adherence and retention in treatment, care, and prevention programs. Qualitative and quantitative data collection methods will be used with index participants and network members.

The primary outcome examined in the proposed study is engagement in care, operationalized as the number of clinical visits attended. Clinic visits will be monitored on a weekly basis. Secondary outcomes of interest include medication adherence, sexual risk behaviors, and substance use. For the quantitative study, formal psychological testing will be conducted with index adolescent females, and biological specimens will be collected to validate self-reported drug use. CD-4 counts and viral load will be monitored every three months via chart review. Index adolescents will be interviewed every six months (with phone interviews focused on service utilization at each six month interval midpoint) for eighteen months while network members will be interviewed at baseline and one year. Qualitative interviews in the Ethnographic Study will be conducted with a small sub-sample of index and identified network participants from each site at least monthly for a period of at least 18 months. Qualitative interviews will be ethnographic in nature and will rely on participants' life stories and narratives of social experience to supply their content and to guide their progression. Qualitative Interviews in the Gender Substudy will be conducted with a subsample of index participants. These qualitative interviews will focus on issues of gender related vulnerabilities and will be used to develop a survey to be administered to all index participants from sites participating in this substudy.