By Shawn Malone, Project Director, The Mpilo Project, PSI South Africa
Treatment literacy seems to be trending within the HIV response at the moment, as we look for strategies that will not only get people to start treatment but also help them stay healthy and adherent over the next several decades.
Each person will be different, but what does everyone need to hear when they’re first starting out? Often as public health professionals our minds jump straight to clinical guidance. But in implementing the Mpilo Project, we have learned that what we think people need is not always what they think they need.
For treatment literacy, drawing on what we’ve heard from thousands of people, we think it is better for healthcare providers to start with the big picture using the following messages:
- HIV treatment is now very good, much better than in the past, and most people find HIV easy to manage. If you take your pill every day, you can live just as long and be just as healthy as someone without HIV. It’s normal to feel worried or scared, but you are going to be ok.
- After just a few months on treatment, you can reach viral suppression, which means your HIV is completely under control. At that point, there is so little HIV in your body that it can’t harm you and you can’t pass it to anyone else through sex. You can rest easy knowing that you’re staying healthy and protecting the people you love.
- Collecting your meds will get easier. You won’t always have to come to the clinic every month. If you take your pill every day, within six months, you can start collecting your meds in a more convenient place, like a pharmacy or another pick-up point in your community, without waiting in a long queue. You can even send someone else to collect your meds for you. You will only need to come to the clinic a couple of times a year.
- We’ve recently changed to a new type of treatment that is much easier on the body. For most people, treatment now has few or no side effects, and if you have any they should pass quickly. If you do experience any side effects, you can let me know, and we will make a plan together on how to manage them.
- If you’re worried about how to tell your loved ones that you have HIV, we can also help you with that. While stigma is real, most people find that family and friends are accepting and supportive, and most relationships survive an HIV diagnosis and even come out stronger. While it may feel scary, most people feel relieved after telling someone.
- Things might come up in your life that make it hard for you to get to the clinic or take your treatment, and that is normal. If anything ever happens that makes it hard for you to stay on your treatment, you can tell me, and I will not judge you. I am here to support you and help you find solutions.
- What other questions or concerns do you have right now? What is going through your mind? Whatever it is, we can talk about it and figure it out.
We need to cover certain clinical information as well, of course. But the human elements are where to begin.
Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and led by Population Services International (PSI) in partnership with Ipsos, Matchboxology and the South African Department of Health, the Mpilo Project aims to increase linkage to HIV treatment and prevention among men in South Africa by designing, testing, and scaling interventions that are informed by an understanding of men’s barriers and preferences.
