Offering Women PrEP With Education and Shared Decision-making (Aim 2)

Although 13% of the U.S. female population is Black, 60% of new HIV diagnoses in U.S. women occur among Black women. The South is the epicenter of the U.S. HIV epidemic, including in women, and Black Southern women are disproportionately affected: Black women account for 69% of new HIV diagnoses in women in the South. As the first highly effective, discrete, woman-controlled HIV prevention method, oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) with tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine radically expands HIV prevention options for women. However, uptake of PrEP in U.S. women has lagged, particularly among groups most affected by HIV.

PrEP cascades outline the necessary steps for accessing PrEP, including screening and identifying eligible individuals, linkage to care, prescription, and initiation of PrEP. Data suggest there are multilevel barriers related to the process of screening for HIV risk in women and identifying potential PrEP candidates that may drive a significant drop off early in the PrEP cascade for women. Women report feeling judged by risk assessment questions and experience stigma around disclosing sexual practices. As a result, if screening is required to educate patients about PrEP - as is true in most clinical settings - many women for whom PrEP is appropriate may never learn about PrEP. Further, women have low levels of knowledge about HIV risk and HIV prevention options, and therefore will not seek out PrEP services themselves. Lastly, there is often limited time to educate patients in busy clinics. By offering education to all women about vulnerabilities to HIV as well as information about HIV prevention methods including PrEP, at-risk women can circumvent these multifactorial barriers and request PrEP. Electronic decision support tools (DST), which have been used with success in a range of healthcare contexts including contraception, provide an efficient and private mechanism for this information-sharing step.

The study team developed a tablet-based tool that is designed to provide universal PrEP education and facilitate women's agency to identify their own risks and interest in PrEP. It was refined with iterative feedback from patient and community stakeholders and finalized based on cognitive testing.

The DST provides information about vulnerabilities to HIV, and emphasizes the variable and individual nature of baseline risk. It provides information on the core characteristics of different HIV prevention methods, and then the opportunity to explore these characteristics in depth, including efficacy, safety and side effects. The user chooses the level of information that they wish to receive through the interactive interface, allowing for an individualized experience. Upon reaching the end of the tool, information on the tablet suggests that women ask their provider about HIV prevention methods they are interested in using, based on their preferences for method characteristics, and their questions to facilitate deliberation with the provider. The DST takes approximately 10 minutes to complete. A decision support tool was chosen as a key component of the study following its proven effectiveness in offering contraceptive options to patients. The HIV prevention DST was tested in Aim 1 of this study: participants were randomized to viewing the DST or not, prior to receiving usual care.

Additionally, the study team recognizes the importance of receiving health information from a trusted source, such as health care providers or health educators, when making important health decisions. Therefore, this study (Aim 2) will offer and assess the effects of a combined intervention of the DST following a clinic-wide training on shared decision making and trauma-informed care. Shared decision making is an effective strategy to offer information and services to patients as it allows the health care provider to share their clinical knowledge and expertise while partnering with the patient to elicit their experiential knowledge, needs and preferences. Through partnership between a patient and provider, the patient can make an informed decision about HIV prevention and other health needs that align with their values and desires and can result in greater adherence to the prevention or treatment options and satisfaction with care. The training will also include information about trauma-informed approaches to deliver health care in a person-centered and affirming manner. This training will highlight how many people, particularly those vulnerable to HIV due to intersecting oppressions, carry traumas that impact their exposure to health issues and the resources needed to mitigate these harms. It is critical that health care providers and health professionals are aware of intersecting forms of oppression that create trauma, including those that the medical profession create and perpetuate. A combined approach of shared decision making at the interpersonal level and trauma informed care at the clinic-level is an equity-oriented strategy to offering HIV prevention information to women in the Southeastern U.S. who are disproportionately impacted by HIV.