In-Depth Interview Guide

Form Approved

OMB No: 0920-0840

Exp. Date: 1/31/2019

Development of a Mobile Messaging Intervention for Men who have Sex with Men:

Formative Study

2d. In-depth Interview Guide

(Following consent for participants) Welcome and thank you for being here today. My name is (name), and I am a researcher at (organization name). Today, we’re going to have a discussion about informational public health messages that might be used to encourage people to take part in HIV prevention or HIV care. This interview should take about an hour and a half. Keep in mind that there is no right or wrong answers. If you feel uncomfortable at any time, you can choose not to answer a question. Everything that you say in here will be kept private. The information may be shared with other members of the research staff, but the information that you share with me today will only be used for this research project. If it’s all right with you, I would like to audio-record our interview. This is so that I can remember everything that you say to me here today without having to write it all down. This recording will be transcribed, so we will be putting all of the words that you say here onto paper, but there will be no identifying information for yourself or others in the transcriptions. The recording will be destroyed once it is transcribed. Is it okay with you if I record the discussion?

1. To start with, I want us to talk about public health messages that may be used to inform people of five different topic areas. The topic areas are: Condom use, HIV testing, STI testing, ART use and PrEP use (confirm knowledge of each of these subject areas and fill in any knowledge gaps as appropriate).

Here I have cards with each of the topics written individually one per card. I am going to lay the cards out in a row. *** Lay the cards out as shown below***

PrEP Use

ART Use

STI Testing

HIV Testing

Condom use

2. For each of these five topics I have five messages that we have come up with. These are messages that we think are important for all people to know. We want these messages to be applicable to HIV negative men and men living with HIV.

Let us start with the first topic, condom use. So here are the first five messages: [read the five condom use messages]. I would like you to now rank these in terms of which we think are the most effective. That is – which of these messages do you think will be most likely to achieve the goal of motivating people to use condoms? We will arrange them from most effective to the least effective under the ‘condom use’ card.

Why was “XXX” the most effective message? Why was “XXX” the least effective message? Probe around specific areas of the message: the language used, the format, the inclusion of visuals or statistics.

Which of these messages would you prefer to see on a mobile phone? What makes those messages better for viewing on a mobile than others?

For each of these five messages imagine if you were in charge of designing how they were presented – what would you do to make the messages more effective? What would make them more appealing? Probe for: language, tone, format, mode of delivery, use of humor, or inclusion of science.

*** Repeat this process for the messages in each of the five subject areas ***

Looking at these, some of the messages talk about the amount of risk that can be reduced, e.g. this one says PrEP can reduce HIV risk by up to 95%. Is it important to have the number included?

Some messages say that specific people or organizations recommend certain things, for example, this one says that CDC recommend that men be HIV tested once a year. Is it important to include the person or organization that is making the recommendation? Who would you trust the most to make recommendations, e.g. CDC, Universities, specific people?

Now I want us to think about how different people may react to the messages. Let us start thinking about young men; I am talking about men aged between about 16-18:

Are there any messages in the piles here that might need to be presented differently for young men aged 16-18? How would they need to be different?

What about men who are in relationships – do you think any of these messages might need to be presented differently for them? Which ones and how would you present them differently?

Are there any messages presented here that you would like to see presented differently for men of different races or ethnicities? How would they be presented differently?

Are there any messages presented here that might need to be presented differently for men living with HIV than for men who are HIV-negative? How would they be presented differently?

Looking at these messages, are there any subject areas that you think are missing? What specific messages do you think need to be added to the piles you see here?

How about receiving messages on an app on your smartphone? Do you have any concerns about this? (Probe: privacy, data use)

Ok, this was a lot of work, but you have given us some incredibly important information today! I really appreciate all of your participation. What questions do you have for me before we finish?

Public reporting burden of this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour and 30 minutes per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden to CDC/ATSDR Reports Clearance Officer; 1600 Clifton Road NE, MS D-74, Atlanta, Georgia 30333; Attn: OMB-PRA (0920-0840)