Online Cohort of Sexual and Gender Minorities: Evaluating Digital Interventions to Improve HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis and Antiretroviral Treatment Uptake and Adherence

Online Cohort of Sexual and Gender Minorities: Evaluating the Effect of Digital Interventions on the Uptake and Adherence to HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis and Antiretroviral Treatment

This study will create and follow an online cohort of sexual and gender minorities in Brazil to better understand the use of HIV prevention and treatment strategies, particularly pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and antiretroviral treatment (ART). Participants will complete online questionnaires at the beginning of the study and every three months for one year to provide information about medication use and adherence, sexual behaviors, HIV prevention and testing, sexually transmitted infections, mental health, and experiences of discrimination in health services.

Participants who are using PrEP or ART and agree to take part in the intervention will be randomly assigned to receive either a digital intervention or no digital intervention. The digital intervention will consist of weekly WhatsApp messages for six months, including reminders and information intended to support adherence to PrEP or ART.

The main question of the study is whether weekly WhatsApp messages can improve adherence to PrEP or ART among sexual and gender minorities in Brazil. The study hypothesis is that participants who receive the digital intervention will have higher adherence to PrEP or ART than participants who do not receive the intervention.

Inclusion Criteria:

male sex assigned at birth and identifying as a man, travesti, transgender person, or non-binary person; age ≥18 years; residing in Brazil; access to the internet; and self-reporting sex with a man in the past 12 months.

Exclusion Criteria:

incorrectly answering the attention-check questions; and incomplete responses, defined as not reaching the end of the screening questionnaire