Development and testing of a mobile phone SMS-based intervention to increase knowledge about HIV and encourage uptake of HIV testing amongst African communities in Nottingham: A feasibility study

Project Duration

April 2012 - October 2014

Funder

NHS Nottingham City Public Health Commissioned Research or Evaluation Project

Aims

To explore the acceptability, feasibility and potential effectiveness of a mobile phone based text-messaging initiative for HIV prevention amongst African communities in Nottingham.

Research Questions

• Is an SMS-based HIV prevention initiative feasible and acceptable to African communities in the UK?
• Do the initial results from this SMS based HIV prevention feasibility study support the development of further SMS intervention provision in Nottingham City PCT?
• Do the initial results from this SMS based HIV prevention feasibility study support the development of a larger scale RCT to: 
  1. increase HIV knowledge
  2. improve attitudes to testing
  3. enhance uptake of HIV testing amongst African communities in the UK

The objectives of this feasibility study are:

• To determine whether it is feasible to recruit people from African communities to participate in an SMS-based intervention to promote uptake of HIV testing (and in sufficient numbers to test the intervention in a subsequent larger scale RCT)
• To establish the usability and acceptability of an SMS-based intervention in the target population
• To assess issues of study burden and study retention for a future trial
• To collect preliminary data of interest regarding changes in self-reported:
  1. HIV-related knowledge
  2. attitudes to testing
  3. uptake of HIV testing with the target population, and to establish effect size for a future trial
• To qualitatively explore participants' experiences of engaging with the intervention

Methods

Mixed methods.

Stage of Development

This is a current project.