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ViewAttendees 2

Symposia

Health Psychology / Behavioral Medicine - Adult

Session: Examining the Various Stages of Domestic and Global Mental Health Interventions for HIV from Treatment Development Priorities to Treatment Response

2 - (SYM 63) Feasibility and Acceptability of Project MATTER: A Compassion-based Psycho-behavioral Intervention for Sub-optimally Engaged Men Who Have Sex with Men Living with HIV and Substance Use Disorders

Saturday, November 18, 2023
10:30 AM – 12:00 PM PST
Location: Tahuya (508), Level 5

Men who have sex with men (MSM) make up 69% of people living with HIV in the US. Those with substance use disorders (SUDs) are likely to be inadequately engaged in HIV care in part due to internalized stigma, perpetuated by experienced stigma and structural inequities. The MATTER intervention was developed and iteratively refined based on community and key informant feedback to scalably and flexibly mitigate the negative behavioral consequences of internalized stigma on engagement in HIV care. This text-enhanced psycho-behavioral intervention includes five one-on-one intervention visits focused on a) behavioral goal setting and related self-efficacy, b) strategies to increase metacognitive awareness (i.e., non-judgmental awareness of emotions and cognitions), and c) reinforcement of compassionate self-restructuring. Additionally, participants receive daily emotion queries and bi-directional personalized compassionate self-statements for an additional 8 weeks to both model cognitive restructuring related to the self and to be reminded of the content of the intervention. In a pilot randomized control trial (RCT) of MATTER, of the 56 eligible MSM living with HIV and SUDs who were sub-optimally engaged in care and completed a baseline visit, 50 were randomized (89% of eligible participants). Of those, 19 (38%) identified as Black, 27 as White (54%), and 11 as Hispanic or Latino (22%). Six were lost post-randomization, resulting in 88% retained. Participants to date have attended 96.0% of research visits and those in the intervention arm attended 95.2% of intervention sessions and replied to a mean of 77.3% of the daily text messages. In relation to acceptability, the mean (SD) score on the Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ-8; 0=quite dissatisfied–3=very satisfied) was 2.7 (SD=0.3) post-intervention and 2.7 (0.4) at the final follow up visit for those in the intervention arm and 2.2 (0.4) and 2.4 (0.5) respectively for those in the control arm. This pilot RCT indicates that the MATTER intervention, a relatively brief and flexibly delivered evidence-informed and text-enhanced intervention, is feasible and acceptable for MSM living with HIV and SUDs who are sub-optimally engaged in HIV care. A fully powered RCT is needed to assess the efficacy of the MATTER intervention for improving engagement in HIV care among MSM with SUDs.