Brief virtual intervention associated with increased social engagement and decreased negative affect among people aging with HIV

ABSTRACT

Virtual Villages—online communities that deliver supports to promote aging in place—are proposed to mitigate isolation and support the health of aging populations. Using a community-engaged approach, we developed and pilot-tested a Virtual Village intervention tailored for people living with HIV (PLWH) aged 50+ . The intervention employed a Discord server featuring social interaction, regional and national resources, expert presentations, and mindful meditation exercises. In 2022, a sample of PLWH aged 50+ from three U.S. study sites participated in a four-week pilot. Pre- and post-intervention surveys assessed participants’ demographic characteristics; degree of loneliness, social connectedness, HIV-related stigma, and technology acceptance; mental wellbeing and physical health outcomes; and user experience. Participants (N = 20) were socioeconomically and racially/ethnically diverse, aged 51–88 years, and predominantly identified as gay or bisexual men (75%). Paired t-tests revealed a significant increase in participants’ mean social engagement scores and a significant decrease in participants’ mean negative affect scores, following the intervention. User experience scores were acceptable and participants reported a positive sense of connectedness to the Virtual Village community. Results suggest that a virtual community can be accessible to older PLWH and may enhance social engagement and improve aspects of mental wellbeing.

KEYWORDS:

• Intervention
• social engagement
• mental health
• virtual community
• HIV and aging

Sustainable Development Goals:

• SDG 3: Good health and well-being

Acknowledgments

We thank Jeff Taylor (HIV + Aging Research Project–Palm Springs) and the 24 members of our community advisory board for guiding this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

ANP: methodology, formal analysis, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing; ALN: conceptualization, methodology, writing – review & editing; KYG: writing – original draft; JLL: writing – original draft; MY-J: methodology, writing – review & editing; ELR: writing – original draft; CC: writing – review & editing; JTG: conceptualization, methodology, writing – review & editing; BB: conceptualization, methodology, writing – review & editing, funding acquisition.

Data availability

The participants of this study did not give written consent for their data to be shared publicly, so due to the sensitive nature of the research supporting data is not available.

Additional information

Funding

Supported in part by research grant 60304 from the Merck Investigator Initiated Studies Program of Merck & Co, Inc. ALN additionally received support from the NIH/NIA (K01 AG064986). The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of Merck & Co, Inc. or the US National Institutes of Health.