Despite the potential for anti-retroviral therapy (ART) to ensure maternal health and reduce vertical HIV transmission to as low as 1%, HIV-related maternal deaths and HIV infection among infants remain unacceptably high across sub-Saharan Africa. Prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) requires a complex series of interventions throughout pregnancy and after birth, and only an estimated 15-30% of eligible women complete this PMTCT cascade. Drop-offs can occur in the PMTCT cascade if women refuse HIV testing, do not disclose their HIV status, or avoid essential health services because they fear negative consequences for their relationship with their male partner. Engaging both partners of a couple during pregnancy has the potential to enhance health decisions, increase healthcare utilization, and ultimately improve maternal, paternal, and infant health. The goal of this study is to develop and pilot a home-based couples intervention that includes safe HIV testing and disclosure for couples, alongside information and counseling for family health during the perinatal period. We will adapt existing evidence-based Couples HIV Counseling and Testing (CHCT) protocols for the special needs of pregnant women and their male partners, and train pairs of lay health workers (one female and one male) to deliver this service as part of home visits in rural Kenya. As men rarely attend antenatal clinics in Kenya, a home-based strategy can reach the couple in a safe and convenient space and give them unprecedented access to family health information, CHCT services, and linkage to care. This intervention, based on an interdependence model of communal coping and behavior change, is expected to help couples to communicate, plan, and take action around HIV and family health. Building on our team's preliminary studies in this rural Kenyan setting, we propose to collect further formative data and then translate our findings into a viable intervention model with input from local stakeholders. We will then conduct a pilot study of the home-based couples intervention, in which we will randomize pregnant women at two antenatal clinics to the intervention or standard care arms of the study, and follow them and their male partners until three months after the expected delivery date of the baby. We will preliminarily assess the effects of the intervention on uptake of CHCT by couples, repeat HIV testing during pregnancy for HIV- negative women, and utilization of PMTCT and HIV services for HIV-positive women and men. We will also explore the roles of potential mediators for these effects suggested by our interdependence conceptual framework (such as measures of couple relationship dynamics). Results from this study will provide evidence of the preliminary impact, acceptability, and feasibility of the intervention and the study methods, that will allow our team to develop a larger-scale efficacy trial. Engaging pregnant couples in family health and PMTCT is an essential step towards reducing HIV-related maternal mortality and eliminating new HIV infections among children in sub-Saharan Africa.
This research will contribute to public health efforts to improve the health of pregnant women, their male partners, and infants in low-resource settings by developing and piloting a home-based intervention to increase couple HIV counseling and testing and mutual disclosure. Such efforts to engage both members of the couple in support of family health will have important implications for uptake of HIV prevention and treatment, as well as for maternal, paternal, and child health. This research has the potential to make important contributions towards reducing some of the most significant public health problems in sub-Saharan Africa, including mother-to-child transmission of HIV; maternal, paternal, and infant mortality; and transmission of HIV in serodiscordant couples.
