Text Messaging to Improve HIV Testing Among Young Women in Kenya (T2T)

University of Washington

Status

Completed

Conditions

HIV Infection

Treatments

Behavioral: Weekly HIV sensitization text messages

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

NIH

Identifiers

NCT02527135

D43TW009580 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

49533-EJ

S4 0254-01 (Other Grant/Funding Number)

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to determine whether regularly scheduled HIV sensitization text messages (SMS) are effective in increasing HIV testing rates among young women in Kenya.

Full description

In Kenya, women have higher rates of infection (6.9%) than men (4.4%) and young women aged 15-24 years are over three times more likely to be infected than young men of the same age group. HIV testing and counseling remains critical to identifying new infections and preventing the spread of HIV but many young women do not test and still continue to engage in high risk behavior.

HIV programs have begun to leverage mobile phones and text messages to increase the reach and scale of interventions. Kenya currently has 32.2 million mobile phone subscribers, representing a 79.2% country penetration. Text messages have been used successfully in Kenya for marketing purposes and have even been demonstrated to increase antiretroviral (ART) adherence. Despite advances in mobile-based applications to improve issues in health, none of these health applications have yet been able to reach the scale of mobile phone-based financial products in Kenya.

Given the potential synergies of text message use and need for HIV testing, a randomized quasi-experimental study was conducted to test whether weekly text messages encouraging HIV testing and improving HIV awareness would increase HIV testing, enhance HIV risk perception and reduce high risk behaviour among young women 18-24 years old in a predominantly rural region in Kenya.

Women in the intervention arm received access to a suite of HIV sensitization text messages sent weekly to increase their awareness of HIV and encourage them to test with the option of texting back for more information to a maximum of three times per week. Women in the control arm did not receive these messages. All women were followed up for six months with monthly SMS surveys collecting data on their HIV testing practices, sexual behaviour and risk perception.

Enrollment

600 patients

Sex

Female

Ages

18 to 24 years old

Volunteers

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Own a mobile phone which they don't share and which operates on a telecom provider supported by our SMS platform
Be HIV uninfected (by self report) or not know their HIV status
Report not having tested for HIV in the preceding 12 months
Know how to send and receive SMS
Must consent to the study
Have regular access to electricity for charging a cell phone

Exclusion criteria