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. 2018 Oct;22(10):3395-3406.
doi: 10.1007/s10461-018-2174-6.

Addressing Stigma Through a Virtual Community for People Living with HIV: A Mixed Methods Study of the PositiveLinks Mobile Health Intervention

Tabor E Flickinger  1 , Claire DeBolt  2 , Alice Xie  3 , Alison Kosmacki  2 , Marika Grabowski  1 , Ava Lena Waldman  1 , George Reynolds  4 , Mark Conaway  5 , Wendy F Cohn  5 , Karen Ingersoll  6 , Rebecca Dillingham  7   8
Affiliations

Addressing Stigma Through a Virtual Community for People Living with HIV: A Mixed Methods Study of the PositiveLinks Mobile Health Intervention

Tabor E Flickinger et al. AIDS Behav. 2018 Oct.

Abstract
in English, Spanish

Stigma has negative consequences for quality of life and HIV care outcomes. PositiveLinks is a mobile health intervention that includes a secure anonymous community message board (CMB). We investigated discussion of stigma and changes in stigma scores. Of 77 participants in our pilot, 63% were male, 49% Black, and 72% had incomes below the federal poverty level. Twenty-one percent of CMB posts (394/1834) contained stigma-related content including negative (experiencing stigma) and positive (overcoming stigma) posts addressing intrapersonal and interpersonal stigma. Higher baseline stigma was positively correlated with stress and negatively correlated with HIV care self-efficacy. 12-month data showed a trend toward more improved stigma scores for posters on the CMB versus non-posters (- 4.5 vs - 0.63) and for posters of stigma-related content versus other content (- 5.1 vs - 3.3). Preliminary evidence suggests that a supportive virtual community, accessed through a clinic-affiliated smartphone app, can help people living with HIV to address stigma.

El estigma tiene consecuencias negativas para la calidad de vida y los resultados de la atención del VIH. PositiveLinks es una intervención de salud móvil que incluye un tablero de mensajes de comunidad anónimo seguro (CMB por sus siglas en ingles). Investigamos la discusión sobre el estigma y los cambios en los puntajes de estigma. De los 77 participantes en nuestra prueba piloto, el 63% eran hombres, el 49% eran de raza negra y el 72% tenían ingresos por debajo del nivel federal de pobreza. El 21% de las publicaciones de CMB (394/1,834) contenían contenido relacionado con el estigma, incluidas publicaciones negativas (experimentando estigma) y positivas (superando el estigma) que abordaban el estigma intrapersonal e interpersonal. El estigma inicial más alto se correlacionó positivamente con el estrés y se correlacionó negativamente con la autoeficacia del cuidado del VIH. Los datos de 12 meses mostraron una tendencia hacia puntajes de estigma mejorados para quienes publicaban en el CMB versus quienes no publicaban (− 4.5 vs − 0.63) y para quienes publicaban contenido relacionado con el estigma versus otro contenido (− 5.1 vs − 3.3). La evidencia preliminar sugiere que una comunidad virtual de apoyo, a la que se accede a través de una aplicación de teléfono inteligente afiliada a la clínica, puede ayudar a las personas que viven con el VIH a enfrentar el estigma.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS; Mobile health; PositiveLinks; Smartphone app; Stigma.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest

For all authors, no conflicts of interest are reported.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Community message board coding categories and frequencies
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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