Using Technology to Effectively Engage Adolescents and Young Adults into Care: STAR TRACK Adherence Program

A Rapid Review of eHealth Interventions Addressing the Continuum of HIV Care (2007–2017)

“…Other foci included retention (8.9%, k = 4) and linkage to care (2.2%, k = 1). Two studies (4.4%) focused on both adherence and retention [19, 20], one study (2.2%) focused on both linkage and re-engaging clients back into care outcomes [21], and one study (2.2%) focused on both care retention and virologic suppression [22]. The studies included samples of PLWH experienced with HIV treatment (k = 18), non-adherent to ART (k = 13), or treatment naïve (k = 6).…”

“…Most of the interventions (k = 20) using cognition as a mechanism of change were focused on ART adherence for their clients. Other interventions using cognition as a change mechanism focused on both ART adherence and virologic suppression (k = 4); one study [19] focused on both ART adherence and care retention, and one study focused on both care retention and virologic suppression [22]. All of the eHealth interventions using cognition were augmented with another change mechanism except for two studies [i.e., [43, 44] ].…”

“…We discovered that most (56.5%, k = 13) of these studies focused only on improving medication adherence. Only one study [45] focused on linkage to care, three studies [26, 46, 47] focused on care retention, and another six studies [19–21, 30, 47, 48] focused on multiple outcomes related to CoC. All of the eHealth interventions using knowledge also employed other mechanisms of change except for four studies [46, 47, 49, 50].…”

“…Another study [38] also identified that an individualized SMS texting intervention improved dose timing among PLWH with co-occurring bipolar disorders. An additional study [19] found preliminary evidence of efficacy for a SMS-based intervention improving medication adherence (as well as retention in care) among youth and young adults.…”

“…Another study [47] found that an SMS-based intervention was efficacious in reminding parents living with HIV to bring their child to the child’s HIV care visit. In addition, Hailey et al [19] described an SMS-based intervention showing preliminary evidence of efficacy for increasing attendance to care appointments and medication adherence among youth and young adult clients. No SMS-based interventions among our studies addressed linkage to or re-engagement in HIV care.…”