Telephone-delivered behavioral health interventions for people living with HIV: patients’ perspectives from a qualitative study

ABSTRACT

People living with HIV (PLWH) often experience mental health concerns as well as difficulties with medication adherence; they also report barriers to receipt of health services. Telephone-delivered interventions can overcome some of these barriers. To obtain patients’ perspectives on telephone-delivered behavioral health services, we conducted a qualitative study with patients who participated in one of two telephone-delivered interventions (mindfulness training, health coaching) in a research trial. Patients (N = 42; M age = 46 years, 50% female, 26% Black) participated in semi-structured qualitative interviews after completing the study. They identified several advantages (e.g., being able to schedule sessions more flexibly compared to in-person appointments, ease of developing rapport with interventionists) as well as occasional challenges of phone delivery (e.g., network connectivity). Overall, PLWH view telephone-delivery as a convenient and flexible method to engage in behavioral health interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• HIV
• qualitative research
• telehealth
• intervention

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

The research reported herein was supported by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health of the National Institutes of Health under award number R34-AT008930 to Michael P. Carey, PhD and Elena Salmoirago-Blotcher, MD, PhD (Multiple-PIs). Eugene M. Dunne, PhD is supported by a Career Development Award from NCCIH [grant number K23-AT010099]. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.