RESEARCH ARTICLE Short Message Service (SMS)-Based Intervention to Improve Treatment Adherence among HIV-Positive Youth in Uganda: Focus Group Findings

This paper presents one of the first qualitative studies to discuss programmatic barriers to SMS-based interventions for HIV-positive youth and discusses pathways through which youth perceive them to work. We conducted six focus groups with 20 male and 19 female HIV-positive youths in two clinics in Kampala, Uganda. We find that youth commonly use SMS as over 90 % of this study’s youths knew how to read, write and send messages and al-most three-fourths of them had phones. Youth strongly felt that the success of this interven-tion hinged on ensuring confidentiality about their HIV-positive status. Key programmatic challenges discussed where restrictions on phone use and phone sharing that could ex-clude some youth. Participants felt that the intervention would improve their adherence by providing them with needed reminders and social support. Youths ’ suggestions about inter-vention logistics related to content, frequency, timing and two-way messages will be helpful to practitioners in the field