Acceptability of an Intervention to Promote Viral Suppression and Serostatus Disclosure for Men Living with HIV in South Africa: Qualitative Findings

Authors

Mxolisi Mathenjwa, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Hazar Khidir, Harvard Medical School
Cecilia Milford, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Nzwakie Mosery, University of the Witwatersrand, JohannesburgFollow
Letitia Rambally Greener, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Madeline Pratt, The University of Alabama at Birmingham
Kasey O’Neil, Harvard Medical School
Abigail Harrison, Brown UniversityFollow
David R. Bangsberg, OHSU-PSU School of Public HealthFollow
Steven A. Safren, University of Miami
Jennifer A. Smit, University of the Witwatersrand, JohannesburgFollow
Christina Psaros, Massachusetts General Hospital
Lynn T. Matthews, The University of Alabama at BirminghamFollow

Sponsor

This work was funded by R34 NIMH (Grant No. R34MH100948). Contributions from Safren and Bangsberg were supported by K24 (Grant Nos. K24DA040489, K24 MH87227). Contributions from Khidir were funded by a medical student award from the HIVMA/IDSA (2016).

Published In

AIDS and Behavior

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2021

Subjects

HIV-serostatus disclosure, Men living with HIV -- South Africa

Abstract

Men living with HIV ( MLWH ) often have reproductive goals that can increase HIV-transmission risks to their pregnancy partners. We developed a safer conception intervention for MLWH in South Africa employing cognitive behavioral skills to promote serostatus disclosure, ART uptake, and viral suppression. MLWH were recruited from an HIV clinic near Durban, South Africa, and encouraged to include partners in follow-up visits. Exit in-depth interviews were conducted with eleven men and one female partner. The emerging over-arching theme is that safer conception care mitigates internalized and community-level HIV-stigma among MLWH. Additional related sub-themes include: ( 1 ) safer conception care acceptability is high but structural barriers challenge participation; ( 2 ) communication skills trainings helped overcome barriers to disclose serostatus; ( 3 ) feasibility and perceived effectiveness of strategies informed safer conception method selection. Our findings suggest that offering safer conception care to MLWH is a novel stigma-reducing strategy for motivating HIV prevention and treatment and serostatus disclosure to partners.

Rights

Copyright 2021 The Authors

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Locate the Document

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-021-03278-w

DOI

10.1007/s10461-021-03278-w

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/36961

Citation Details

Mathenjwa, M., Khidir, H., Milford, C., Mosery, N., Greener, L. R., Pratt, M. C., ... & Matthews, L. T. (2021). Acceptability of an Intervention to Promote Viral Suppression and Serostatus Disclosure for Men Living with HIV in South Africa: Qualitative Findings. AIDS and Behavior, 1-12.