Abstract
Patient-delivered partner therapy (PDPT) is the practice of providing patients diagnosed with bacterial sexually transmitted infections (STIs) medication to give directly to their partner for treatment, which can result in missed opportunities for partner HIV testing. Fifteen STI clinic patients were asked about their opinions of including HIV self-testing (HIVST) kits with PDPT. Interview data fit well into constructs of the information-motivation-behavioral skills (IMB) model. Patients’ motivations to deliver HIVST kits to their partners included the importance of earlier identification of HIV, convenience, avoidance of STI clinic stigma, and empowerment of individual and partner protection against HIV. Patients described the need for more information with worries about the quality of the HIVST device and questions about how it worked. Patients worried about their partners’ reaction, including the potential for violence, and needed skills to support their partner with HIVST. Public health policies should support the inclusion of HIVST kits with PDPT, but additional intervention research is needed to more fully support patients and their partners with HIVST and PDPT.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the additional contributors of this study. First and foremost, I want to thank the many clinic patients who participated in this study; this research would not have been possible without their valuable contributions. Thank you to Lance Weinhardt, Young Cho, Jennifer Walsh, and Ron Cisler for their study design suggestions and mentorship. Special thanks to Katie Mosack, who provided valuable feedback on the methods used in this phase of the study and earliest versions of this manuscript. Thank you also to Jeffrey Parsons, who provided feedback in the later stages of this paper. I would also like to thank the Undergraduate Research Assistants who helped with recruiting study participants and data collection, including Katelyn Dallman, Amie Emrys, Ratka Galijot, and Steven Lovejoy, in alphabetical order. Finally, I want to thank the entire City of Milwaukee Health Department staff, who helped provide an atmosphere supportive of research and data collection within their clinic space, especially Paul Hunter, Irmine Reitl, and Otilio Oyervides.
Funding
Funding support was provided by the National Institute of Mental Health (R01-MH089129; PI: Weinhardt) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01-DA036466; MPIs; Parsons and Grov), which supported the principal investigator and author of this study. The content of this paper is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Additional funding support came from the Public Health Doctoral Student Award (PI: John) from the Dean’s Office in the Zilber School of Public Health at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. This award provided funding for a large portion of the direct research costs associated with this study.
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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.
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John, S.A. Addressing Missed Opportunities for HIV Testing by Including Rapid HIV Self-testing Kits with Patient-Delivered Partner Therapy. Sex Res Soc Policy 15, 387–397 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-017-0316-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-017-0316-7