Theory-based HIV Disclosure Intervention for Parents

Summary

The investigators propose to develop, implement, and evaluate a theory-driven parental disclosure intervention to assist parents living with HIV (PLH) to make a planned, developmentally appropriate disclosure of their HIV status to their uninfected children or, for PLH with younger children, to articulate a clear plan for disclosure to their children when developmentally appropriate. The majority of the 33.4 million individuals living with HIV worldwide reside in low-resource settings and are also of reproductive and child-rearing age. It is therefore important to the field of public health to develop an evidence-based parental disclosure intervention that can be effectively delivered to parents by a broad range of paraprofessionals. The investigators hypothesize that the proposed intervention will demonstrate efficacy in helping PLH to make developmentally appropriate disclosure to children or make a developmentally appropriate plan of disclosure and will demonstrate short, medium, and long-term efficacy in improving the well-being of parents, children, and families. The proposed scientifically rigorous evaluation includes mixed methods of data collection, a cluster randomized controlled trial, multiple data sources, and a 36-month longitudinal follow-up involving a large sample of parents, children, and providers. The intervention program to be developed and the evaluation data to be collected in the current study will inform the practice and clinic guidelines aimed at improving both parental HIV disclosure and the well-being of PLH, children and families in China and other low-and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Conditions

• HIV/AIDS
• Disclosure

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Interactive Communication with Openness, Passion, and Empowerment "ICOPE"

The parent curriculum consists of five interactive training sessions (120 minutes each session for 10 hours total) with three specific focuses: understanding the stages of childhood cognitive development in the context of parental illness (Session #1 "Child's readiness for disclosure"); improving the parents' cognitive and behavioral skills related to parental HIV disclosure (Session #2 "Benefits and risks of disclosure", Session #3 "How to tell and what to tell", and Session #4 "Disclosure is an ongoing process"); and improving parental psychosocial well-being in adapting to living with HIV/AIDS (Session #5 "Cope with my infection/illness"). The curriculum addresses the issues of child and family strengths and community support across sessions.

BEHAVIORAL

Nutrition Curriculum

The modified curriculum consists of five 2-hour interactive training sessions with aims to increase parents' knowledge of nutrition (Session #1: Food variety; Session #2: Food for growing child), healthy diets and cooking practice (Session 3: Fat, salt and sugar; Session 4: Fruits, vegetables and minerals), and food safety (Session #5 "Food safety")

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Center for Disease Prevention and Control

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• University of South Carolina

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2012-08-31

Primary Completion

2017-08-31

Completion

2018-12-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations