The proposed research includes a longitudinal pilot study to assess the feasibility and acceptability of Blued+. This combination HIV prevention intervention will integrate a combination package of HIV prevention services into Blued, a gay dating App, for men who have sex with men (MSM) in China. Despite high HIV incidence among MSM, HIV prevention interventions such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use remains low in China. If the HIV prevention intervention services provided through the Blued+ App prove feasible and acceptable, the pilot test will facilitate the design of a larger study of intervention efficacy. The study population will be self-reported HIV-negative Blued users who are 18 years of age or greater, were assigned a male sex at birth, report having anal sex with a man in the last 6 months, eligible for PrEP according to China's consensus statement, and reside in metropolitan Beijing or Chengdu, China.
The pilot study will be an interrupted time series cohort of 400 MSM. In two cities, a three-month baseline standard of care (SOC) period with measurement at 0 and 3 months will be followed by a 12-month intervention period with the measurement at 6, 9, 12, and 15 months. During the intervention, enrolled study participants will take surveys every 3 months, as well as have free access to the enhanced version of the Blued App, Blued+, which additionally provides HIV prevention intervention services such as HIV health messages, PrEP drugs, at-home HIV self-testing kits, condoms, and lubricants for no costs. Participants interested in PrEP will be required to have additional PrEP initiation physical exam clinical visits, follow-up clinical visits, and dry blood spot collection lab visits for blood PrEP level measurements. The total study period is 15 months (3 months control run-in period and 12 months intervention). Online surveys are provided over the study period, 2 for the enrollment and basement, and 4 follow-ups for every 3 months of the intervention; physical exam visits are required for participants who chose to initiate and refill PrEP; 1 dry blood spot collection visit is provided for participants who chose to measure blood PrEP level. The participants will be recruited online through the Blued App.
Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Enrollment
423
During the intervention period, participants received the enhanced version of the Blued app. The free HIV prevention services were integrated into the Blued app: health messaging, in-home HIV testing, linkage to care for those testing HIV positive, condoms, lubricants, in-app screening, and provision to PrEP.
BlueD
Beijing, China
Feasibility of Blued+ in China
The intervention will be determined to be feasible if a minimum proportion of participants receive services for home HIV testing (benchmark ≥30%) and PrEP initiation (benchmark ≥20%) through Blued+
Time frame: 12 months after intervention initiation, 15 months after first study interaction
System Usability Scale (SUS)
Acceptability of Blued+ in China will be measured using the System Usability Scale (SUS). The SUS is a widely used scale that evaluates the usability of products and systems through a 10-item question set. The total range of a score on this scale is 0 to 100. This scale does not have any sub-scales. Higher scores on this scale represent higher levels of intervention usability, with 100 being the highest usability and 0 being the lowest usability. Information on this scale and how to calculate values is found in: Bangor, Aaron, Philip T. Kortum, and James T. Miller. "An empirical evaluation of the system usability scale." Intl. Journal of Human-Computer Interaction 24.6 (2008): 574-594. The intervention will be considered acceptable if it reaches a total SUS rating score of ≥ 71/100, which has been interpreted as being 'good' usability.
Time frame: 12 months after intervention initiation, 15 months after first study interaction
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