Prospective Cohort Study of Adolescents Living With HIV and Their Caregivers Attending a Psychosocial Programme in Botswana

Adolescents/young adults with perinatally acquired HIV (PAH) face a number of antiretroviral (ART) adherence and well-being challenges. Two psychosocial interventions that have been developed to address a range of needs of this population (and their caregivers) are residential interventions (camps) and support groups (clubs). There has been little quantitative evaluation of the effects of attending camps for young people and clubs (for children or caregivers), globally. This study aims to investigate whether a package of psychosocial support (camps and clubs) offered to young people living with HIV and their caregivers in Botswana by the Sentebale organisation, is associated with improvements in psychological, behavioural and clinical outcomes from first attendance to one year follow-up. In addition, the study will explore how the psychosocial programme is experienced by young people and their caregivers, and what the perceived impact is. The project as a whole will take place over three years. There will be an initial six month preparatory phase that will include the adaptation of self-report measures for the study context. Subsequently, two studies will be undertaken. The main study will involve a single group within-participants prospective cohort design with two time points (baseline and one year follow-up) with young people and caregivers. The sub-study will involve a qualitative cross sectional design involving semi-structured interviews with young people and caregivers. Young people will be eligible to participate if they are aged 10 to 19 years at the time of study enrolment, are living with HIV and aware of HIV-positive status, have recently started attending the Sentebale programme, and are able to give informed assent/consent. We will aim to retain 175 young people (of 253 recruited) . We will also aim to retain 178 caregivers (of 263 recruited). The sample size for the sub-study will consist of ten young people and ten caregivers.