HealthCall: Smartphone Enhancement of Brief Interventions to Improve Medication Adherence Among Patients in HIV care

BackgroundHeavy drinking among People Living With HIV (PLWH) reduces antiretroviral adherence and worsens health outcomes. Lengthy interventions to reduce drinking and improve adherence are not feasible in most HIV primary care settings, and patients seldom follow referrals to outside treatment. Utilizing visual and video features of smartphone technology, we developed and tested HealthCall as an electronic (smartphone) means of increasing patient involvement in brief intervention to reduce drinking and improve medication adherence without making unfeasible demands on providers. MethodsAlcohol-dependent patients at a large urban HIV clinic were randomized to one of three groups: (1) Motivational Interviewing (MI) plus HealthCall (n=39), (2) NIAAA Clinicians Guide (CG) plus HealthCall (n=38), or (3) CG-only (n=37). Baseline interventions targeting drinking reduction and medication adherence were [~]25 minutes, with brief (10-15 min) booster sessions at 30 and 60 days. HealthCall involved daily use of the smartphone for 3-5 min/day, covering drinking, medication adherence, and other aspects of the prior 24 hours. Our outcome, assessed at 30 and 60 days, and 3, 6 and 12 months, was ART adherence (using unannounced phone pill-count method; possible adherence scores: 0%-100%). Analysis: generalized linear mixed models with pre-planned contrasts. ResultsStudy retention was excellent (85%-94% across timepoints) and unrelated to treatment arm or patient characteristics. ART adherence was generally high throughout follow-up, with some decline by 12 months. Although both CG+HealthCall and MI+HealthCall evidenced benefits early in follow-up, by 6 months, ART adherence was 11% better among patients in CG+HealthCall than in CG-only (p=0.03) and 9% better than among patients in MI+HealthCall (p=0.07). Efficacy differed slightly by gender (p=.09). ConclusionHealthCall paired with CG resulted in better ART adherence than CG alone. MI+HealthCalls early benefits diminished over time. Given the importance of ART adherence and drinking reduction among PLWH, and the low costs and time required for HealthCall, pairing HealthCall with brief interventions within HIV clinics merits widespread consideration.