The Amagugu intervention for disclosure of maternal HIV to uninfected primary school-aged children in South Africa: a randomised controlled trial

Abstract

Increasing populations of children who are HIV-exposed but uninfected will face the challenge of disclosure of parental HIV infection status. We aimed to test the efficacy of an intervention to increase maternal HIV-disclosure to primary school-aged HIV-uninfected children. This randomised controlled trial was done at the Africa Health Research Institute in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Women who had tested HIV positive at least 6 months prior, had initiated HIV treatment or been enrolled in pretreatment HIV care, and had an HIV-uninfected child (aged 6-10 years) were randomly allocated to either the Amagugu intervention or enhanced standard of care, using a computerised algorithm based on simple randomisation and equal probabilities of being assigned to each group. Lay counsellors delivered the Amagugu intervention, which included six home-based counselling sessions of 1-2 h and materials and activities to support HIV disclosure and parent-led health promotion. The enhanced standard of care included one clinic-based counselling session. Outcome measures at 3 months, 6 months, and 9 months post baseline were done by follow-up assessors who were masked to participants' group and counsellor allocation. The primary outcome was maternal HIV disclosure (full [using the word HIV], partial [using the word virus], or none) at 9 months post baseline. We did the analysis in the intention-to-treat population. The lay-counsellor-driven Amagugu intervention to aid parental disclosure has potential for wide-scale implementation after further effectiveness research and could be adapted to other target populations and other diseases. Further follow-up and effectiveness research is required.