Preferences for an HIV prevention mobile phone app: a qualitative study among men who have sex with men in China

Abstract

BackgroundMen who have sex with men (MSM) have a disproportionate burden of HIV infection. Mobile phone apps provide a promising means of improving HIV prevention among MSM. But this has received little examination in China. The objective of this study was to explore MSM’s preferences for an HIV prevention mobile phone app.MethodsQualitative semi-structured personal interviews were conducted with 19 MSM to determine their preferences for features and content to inform the design of an app aimed at HIV prevention in China.ResultsFive categories were identified under the main category preferences for features of the app: target population, attributes, language used, potential user access, and perceived usefulness. Five categories were identified under the main category preferences for content of the app: functions to facilitate HIV testing behavior, HIV post-exposure prevention, warning against substance use, psychological support, and areas for communication.ConclusionsFindings suggest that the design of an app targeting MSM in China should use an integrated framework addressing behavioral and psychological aspects, satisfy common needs of potential users, avoid perpetuating negative stereotypes and stigma, and avoid possible increase of risk behavior due to using the app.

User Preferences for Privacy Protection Methods in Mobile Health Apps: A Mixed-Methods Study

“…These two user-preferred privacy protection methods may be used to solve the dilemma that many people are currently facing. That is, they want to use mHealth apps to discover more information about their health problems and identify resources to keep themselves healthy; at the same time, they do not want others around them to know that they have those health problems ( Goldenberg et al, 2014 ; Zhang et al, 2019 ). This is especially true for people who have health problems without symptoms noticeable to others around them but that may be associated with stigma , such as mild or moderate mental health issues and HIV infection ( Goedel et al, 2017 ; Goldenberg et al, 2014 , 2015 ).…”

“…Among these study participants, 29.0% (124/427) "did not like mobile health apps shared their data with friends," which is a concern about local privacy. Zhang et al (2019) performed qualitative semistructured interviews with 19 young MSM in China to determine their preferences for an HIV prevention mobile phone app. In this study, privacy was frequently mentioned, and the participants' concern was about local privacy with suggestions being related to the name and logo of the app.…”

“…In this study, privacy was frequently mentioned, and the participants' concern was about local privacy with suggestions being related to the name and logo of the app. They did not want to have a gay-identified or HIV-identified app name or logo since that name or logo may cause “unintentional disclosure of the user's sexual orientation, or mistaken by others that the user is HIV infected” ( Zhang et al, 2019 ).…”

“…In both cases, the name of the app can trigger a local privacy violation even though others may not know whether the person uses the app or what contents have been entered into the app. This local privacy violation is based on the assumption that it is unlikely for people without any of these problems to have installed these apps on their phone, as indicated in one comment from a study participant in a previous study ( Zhang et al, 2019 ):…”

Promoting Optimal Sexual and Reproductive Health with Mobile Health Tools for Black Women: Combining Technology, Culture and Context

“…Mobile health (mHealth) interventions delivered through mobile technologies (e.g., mobile phones, tablets, wearable devices) have the potential for providing sexual and reproductive health education that is tailored for specific populations, while offering several advantages in sustaining interventions. Advantages include the ability to tailor content to individual users through integrated risk assessment and to ensure privacy and anonymity; other mHealth advantages are its relative affordability, availability to users on a continuous basis that offers flexibility and convenience, and minimization of space limitations related to intervention provision 6–8 . The benefits of mHealth also extend to health care settings by supporting clinical diagnosis and decision making, providing linkage to care services, improving provider–patient communication and easing access to health care data through patient portals 9,10 …”