Development and Evaluation of a PrEP Decision Aid for Women Seeking Domestic Violence Services in Baltimore

Overview

This study is designed to develop and test an individual decision aid for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) tailored to Black women who have been exposed to intimate partner violence and are working with a domestic violence service provider. three different ways of delivering the tailored decision aid are being tested: 1) as an individual tool; or 2) as a shared decision-making tool with a domestic violence advocate; as compared to generalized information. The goal of decision aid will be to address key cultural and structural factors affecting these women and can help them gain PrEP awareness and access.

Intimate partner violence (IPV)-exposed Black women are often forced to choose between relationship safety and HIV prevention; thus, trauma-, gender-, culturally-responsive HIV prevention interventions are needed for this key priority population. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) may be a viable partner-independent option for IPV-exposed Black women, but no study has identified an evidence-based strategy to promote and increase PrEP uptake among this population, specifically IPV-exposed Black women in the South. Guided by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR), the proposed research aims to adapt, implement and evaluate self- and advocate-administered versions of a PrEP decision aid in a domestic violence agency in Baltimore in order to increase PrEP uptake among Black women in Ending the HIV Epidemic (EtHE) priority areas, address trauma as a barrier to PrEP uptake, and ultimately combat racial disparities in women's HIV cases. Therefore, this Type II hybrid effectiveness-implementation study seeks to adapt an existing PrEP decision aid to IPV-exposed Black women seeking domestic violence (DV) services in Baltimore, an EtHE priority state. Self- and advocate-administered versions of the PrEP decision aid will be implemented and the aid will be evaluated using a three-arm randomized trial. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) will guide this research. A formative evaluation using qualitative interviews with IPV-exposed Black women (N=10) and DV advocates (N=20) was conducted to adapt the PrEP decision aid. Next, the decision aid will be implemented in a DV agency and 90 IPV-exposed Black women will be randomized to either the self- or advocate-administered versions of the aid, or the control intervention, in order to compare feasibility, acceptability and preliminary effectiveness with baseline, 1-, 3-, and 6-month surveys. Focus groups with DV advocates and participants will assess for implementation process outcomes. This study will: provide support for a PrEP decision aid that addresses HIV prevention for IPV-exposed Black women; use implementation science to increase PrEP uptake; include DV agencies in intervention development and implementation; and improve understanding of PrEP scale-up by addressing implementation factors in settings that serve IPV-exposed Black women.