HIV-Related Stigma Intervention for Malaysian Clinicians

University of Delaware

Status: Completed

Conditions: Hiv

Treatments: Behavioral: Project ECHO for HIV Prevention and Stigma Reduction; Behavioral: Project ECHO for HIV Prevention; Behavioral: HIV Connect

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05597787

R34MH124390

Details and patient eligibility

About

Key populations at risk of HIV (including men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, transgender women, and female sex workers) are more likely to be infected with HIV but less likely than members of the general population to know of their HIV status, receive HIV prevention counseling, or be linked to HIV care services. Clinician stigma towards these groups remains a potent and persistent driver of these HIV disparities in many places of the world. The investigators propose to incorporate evidence-based stigma reduction tools into a popular teletraining platform for clinicians and pilot test the resulting intervention (Project ECHO® for HIV Prevention and Stigma Reduction) with clinicians in Malaysia, a context wherein clinician stigma and HIV disparities are substantial.

Enrollment: 78 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• practicing general practitioner or family medicine specialist in Malaysia

Exclusion criteria

Trial design

Primary purpose: Screening

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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78 participants in 3 patient groups

HIV Connect

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants randomized to this condition will complete HIV Connect, which is an online course developed by the Malaysian Society of HIV Medicine designed to educate primary care physicians in Malaysia about HIV. It consists of a series of modules featuring HIV infectious disease experts who instruct on topics including epidemiology and natural history of HIV, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), sexual history taking and STI testing, and others.

Treatment:

Behavioral: HIV Connect

Project ECHO for HIV Prevention

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants randomized to this condition will receive Project ECHO for HIV Prevention, without added evidence-based stigma reduction tools. Participants will meet with the Project ECHO Hub specialists and their learning community on a bi-weekly basis for 60 minutes over the course of 9 months. Each session will feature a didactic training incorporating standardized procedures for HIV testing, prevention, and/or linkage to care, and patient-case presentation and discussion.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Project ECHO for HIV Prevention

Project ECHO for HIV Prevention + Stigma Reduction

Experimental group

Description:

Participants randomized to this condition will receive the Project ECHO for HIV Prevention intervention with added evidence-based stigma reduction tools. Participants will meet with the Project ECHO Hub specialists and their learning community on a bi-weekly basis for 60 minutes over the course of 9 months. Each session will feature a didactic training incorporating standardized procedures for HIV testing, prevention, and/or linkage to care, and patient-case presentation and discussion.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Project ECHO for HIV Prevention and Stigma Reduction