Designing text-messaging (SMS) in HIV programs : ethics-framed recommendations from the field
Martínez Pérez, Guillermo (Médicos Sin Fronteras/Doctors Without Borders Spain, Barcelona, Spain)
Hwang, Bella (Doctors Without Borders South Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa)
Bygrave, Helen (Southern Africa Medical Unit, Doctors Without Borders South Africa, Cape Town, South Africa)
Venables, Emilie (Medical Department, Médecins Sans Frontières, Operational Centre, Brussels, Belgium)

Date:	2015
Abstract:	Text messages (SMS) are being increasingly integrated into HIV programs across Southern Africa to improve patient adherence, linkage to care and provide psycho-social support. Careful attention needs to be paid to the design of SMS-based interventions for clients of HIV-care services to ensure that any potential harm, such as unwanted disclosure of HIV status, is minimized. In this article we propose a set of best practice recommendations to ensure that any SMS-based intervention considers ethical principles to safeguard safety, autonomy and confidentiality of its targeted HIV-positive beneficiaries. This analysis draws from our operational experience in Southern Africa in the design and conduct of mHealth interventions in the frame of HIV projects. The recommendations, framed in the context of the Belmont Report's three ethical pillars, may contribute to more safely operationalize any SMS service integrated into an HIV program if adopted by mHealth planners and implementers. We encourage actors to report on the ethical and methodological pathways followed when conducting SMS-based innovations to improve the wellbeing and quality provision of HIV-care for their targeted clients.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Ethics ; Mhealth ; Medical ; HIV ; Southern Africa ; Text messaging
Published in:	The Pan African Medical Journal, Vol. 21 (july 2015) , ISSN 1937-8688

DOI: 10.11604/pamj.2015.21.201.6844
PMID: 26421096

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