Although 13% of the U.S. female population is Black, 60% of new HIV diagnoses in U.S. women occur among Black women. The South is the epicenter of the U.S. HIV epidemic, including in women, and Black Southern women are disproportionately affected: Black women account for 69% of new HIV diagnoses in women in the South. As the first highly effective, discrete, woman-controlled HIV prevention method, oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) with tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine radically expands HIV prevention options for women. However, uptake of PrEP in U.S. women has lagged, particularly among groups most affected by HIV.
PrEP cascades outline the necessary steps for accessing PrEP, including screening and identifying eligible individuals, linkage to care, prescription, and initiation of PrEP. Data suggest there are multilevel barriers related to the process of screening for HIV risk in women and identifying potential PrEP candidates that may drive a significant drop off early in the PrEP cascade for women. Women report feeling judged by risk assessment questions and experience stigma around disclosing sexual practices. As a result, if screening is required to educate patients about PrEP - as is true in most clinical settings - many women for whom PrEP is appropriate may never learn about PrEP. Further, women have low levels of knowledge about HIV risk and HIV prevention options, and therefore will not seek out PrEP services themselves. By offering education to all women about vulnerabilities to HIV as well as information about HIV prevention methods including PrEP, at-risk women can circumvent these multifactorial barriers and request PrEP. Electronic decision support tools (DST), which have been used with success in a range of healthcare contexts including contraception, provide an efficient and private mechanism for this information-sharing step.
The study team developed a tablet-based tool that is designed to provide universal PrEP education and facilitate women's agency to identify their own risks and interest in PrEP. It was refined with iterative feedback from patient and community stakeholders and finalized based on cognitive testing.
The DST provides information about vulnerabilities to HIV and core characteristics of different HIV prevention methods, and then the opportunity to explore these characteristics in depth, including efficacy, safety and side effects. The user chooses the level of information that they wish to receive through the interactive interface, allowing for an individualized experience. Upon reaching the end of the tool, information on the tablet suggests that women ask their provider about HIV prevention methods they are interested in using, based on their preferences for method characteristics, and their questions in order to facilitate deliberation with the provider. The DST takes approximately 10 minutes to complete.
Approximately 200 women presenting to one reproductive health clinic in Duval County, Florida, will be randomized to standard counseling plus use of an HIV prevention DST, providing education about PrEP and encouraging self-assessment of HIV risk, or standard counseling alone. In addition to the experimental intervention, a subset of 40 participants (20 per arm) will be asked to allow audio-recording of their counseling sessions with a provider. A subset of up to 40 additional participants (20 per arm), all of whom self-identify as women of color, will be invited to complete one-hour, semi-structured interviews after their clinic visit about their experiences of using the DST, HIV prevention counseling, and decision making about PrEP.
