An AI-based mHealth Intervention to Improve HIV Testing

Yale University

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: HIV Infections

Treatments: Behavioral: An attention-chatbot-based mHealth intervention; Behavioral: Educational materials; Behavioral: An AI-chatbot-based mHealth intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT05335096

2000032663

4R33TW011663 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

1R21TW011663-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to develop an artificial intelligence (AI)-chatbot-based mobile health (mHealth) intervention to promote HIV testing in Malaysia.

Full description

A randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be conducted in Malaysia to assess the efficacy of an AI-chatbot-based mHealth intervention versus treatment as usual (TAU) with HIV testing as the primary outcome. The primary outcome will be the proportion of participants who get tested within 180 days.

Participants will be randomized to the chatbot group and TAU group. Participants in the intervention group will get access to an AI-chatbot and can interact with the AI-chatbot at any time. In each round of the interactive communication, the chatbot will provide automated personalized messages containing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), mental health, or HIV testing-related information, motivation and skills based on the participants' answers and will continuously update over time. The participants assigned to the TAU group will get access to an attention-chatbot and can interact with the attention-chatbot at any time. In each round of the interaction, the chatbot will provide pre-scripted time-attention health education messages to the participants.

In addition to the above interventions, the research assistant will manually sent to the participants' phone a piece of educational material and an online survey link every 30 days (at days 30, 60, 90, 120, 150 and 180). The primary outcome of HIV testing will be collected through the survey.

Enrollment: 296 estimated patients

Sex: Male

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Cis-gender male
• condomless sex with men in the past 6 months
• HIV status unknown or previously tested negative
• speaks Bahasa Malaysia or English.

Exclusion criteria

• Does not have a smartphone
• HIV status previously tested positive
• cannot speak Bahasa Malaysia or English

Trial design

Primary purpose: Screening

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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296 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention group

Experimental group

Treatment:

Behavioral: An AI-chatbot-based mHealth intervention

Behavioral: Educational materials

TAU group

Active Comparator group

Treatment:

Behavioral: Educational materials

Behavioral: An attention-chatbot-based mHealth intervention