Engaging and Supporting Youth to Promote Adherence Success (EASYPAS)

Abstract

Adolescents and young adults (youth), ages 13 to 24 years, represented 21% of the 39,782 HIV infections reported during 2016 in the United Stated, with a disproportionate prevalence in ethnic, minority youth (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017). Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has been recommended for all people living with HIV infection (PLWH; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2017). However, youth living with HIV (YLWH) face substantial difficulties with ART adherence, in comparison to adult counterparts, resulting in poor health outcomes such as treatment failure and risk of sexual transmission to seronegative partners (Wong, Zucker, Fernandes, & Cennimo, 2016; Wood, Lowenthal, Lee, Ratcliffe, & Dowshen, 2017). Adherence research is an important component of effective HIV treatment and care, but to date, there is a paucity of evidence describing targeted behavioral interventions for YLWH (Shaw & Amico, 2016), including studies designed to examine the influence of technology on adherence behavior (Navarra et al., 2017). Guided by the PRECEDE PROCEDE model of health education and promotion (Green & Kreuter, 1991), the aims of our pilot study were to (a) test the feasibility and acceptability of