Effect of a Patient-Centered Phone Call by a Clinical Officer at Time of HIV Testing on Linkage to Care in Rural Kenya

James Ayieko; Maya L Petersen; Annelies van Rie; Erick Wafula; Wilson Opudo; Tamara D Clark; Moses R Kamya; Laura B Balzer; Craig R Cohen; Elizabeth A Bukusi; Edwin D Charlebois; Diane V Havlir

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofy126

Effect of a Patient-Centered Phone Call by a Clinical Officer at Time of HIV Testing on Linkage to Care in Rural Kenya

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2018 May 29;5(6):ofy126. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofy126. eCollection 2018 Jun 1.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Kenya Medical Research Institute, Center for Microbiology Research, Kisumu, Kenya.
² University of California, Berkeley, California.
³ University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.
⁴ University of California, San Francisco, California.
⁵ College of Health Sciences and the Infectious Diseases Research Collaboration, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.
⁶ University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts.

Abstract

In a randomized controlled trial, we tested whether a structured, patient-centered phone call from a clinical officer after HIV testing improved linkage to/re-engagement in HIV care. Among 130 HIV-positive persons, those randomized to the phone call were significantly more likely to link to care by 7 and 30 days (P = .04).

Keywords: linkage to HIV care; phone call; randomized controlled trial; re-engagement in care; test and treat.