WhatsApp Peer Groups to Support Youth Living with HIV: Motivations and Functions

Abstract

Young people age 10-24 are disproportionately affected by HIV. Social support has been identified as a factor that can improve HIV outcomes. Access to mobile devices is high worldwide making mobile health (mHealth) interventions a feasible way to provide social support to youth living with HIV (YLWH). This study aims to characterize the unmet needs of YLWH based on the perspectives of youth living with HIV, their caregivers, and healthcare workers (HCWs); to determine the perceived benefits of a WhatsApp group and how it meets the previously identified unmet needs; to observe the content of organically initiated WhatsApp support groups with the goal of comparing content in the groups to what youth, caregivers and HCWs reported. The primary needs of YLWH were related to companionship and emotional support. Youth reported that their current support systems primarily address informational and instrumental support. Participants most frequently identified that WhatsApp groups have the potential to offer companionship support to YLWH. Analysis of WhatsApp group messages are consistent with our findings from interviews, in that the primary type of support given in both groups was companionship support. In summary, WhatsApp groups for YLWH appear to be a way to fill the unmet need of companionship support that YLWH experience.