Implications of Educational Counseling on PrEP Uptake in MSM at a Community Health Clinic

HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medication is 99% effective at preventing HIV acquisition if used daily (CDC, 2020; FDA, 2019). Despite its effectiveness and wide availability, PrEP uptake and adherence remained low, especially among MSM of color (Bradley et al., 2019; Kuhns et al., 2017). Prior studies have shown that participants exposed to PrEP information, counseling, and education were more likely to show interest in PrEP and uptake of PrEP. Although various studies support the effectiveness of educational interventions in increasing PrEP uptake, it has not been widely implemented in the practice setting in communities that would benefit from it. The quality improvement project aims to determine if providing focused PrEP educational counseling will increase participants’ knowledge and PrEP uptake. This study is a quasi-experiment that measures pre- and post-educational intervention PrEP knowledge scores. The two-tailed paired samples t-test shows a significant difference in the mean PrEP knowledge score pre-and post-intervention (alpha value of .05, t(4) = -5.88, p = .004), with all participants having a 100% rate of PrEP uptake at the one-month follow-up visit. These findings support earlier studies that showed participants exposed to PrEP information, counseling, and education were more likely to uptake PrEP. These findings have implications for incorporating PrEP education at community health clinics that offer PrEP services to increase PrEP uptake and adherence in MSM patients