Battery Health is a mobile phone application developed as a collaboration between the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health (Dr. Mark S. Dworkin Principal Investigator) and Connecticut College (Dr. Sangyoon Lee co-Investigator). It’s overarching goals are to promote HIV medication adherence and healthcare appointment attendance (retention in care) in order to lead to control of HIV through suppression of the virus, thus promoting health for the HIV-positive user. The target user for this version of the app are HIV-positive African American men who have sex with men.
Battery Health is informed by the Information Motivation Behavioral Skills (IMB) Model. This application includes an avatar who is a visually attractive credible “person” that can 1) teach the basics of HIV care, medication adherence, and viral suppression and explain the rationale for desired behaviors (Information); 2) provide empowering and encouraging messages, and engage the user by asking the user to consider their own behavior (Motivation); and 3) explain and show helpful interventions that promote adherence such as weekly pill boxes (Behavioral Skills). Users may play and replay information whereas they might have been reluctant to request explanations or re-explanations during a personally overwhelming clinic visit.
The developers are grateful to many persons who provided input into the application development including focus groups of African American HIV-positive men who have sex with men.
Financial support was obtained from the National Institute Of Nursing Research of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R21NR016420. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
This is the version 2.5 for RCT. (b8)
9Apps 4.9
