PositiveLinks and the COVID-19 Response: Importance of Low-Barrier Messaging for PLWH in Non-urban Virginia in a Crisis

PositiveLinks (PL) is an evidence-based mobile health intervention promoting engagement in care for people living with HIV. PL offers secure, in-app patient-provider messaging. We investigated messaging during the early COVID-19 pandemic, comparing messages exchanged between 01/13/2020 and 03/01/2020 (“Pre-COVID”) to messages exchanged between 03/02/2020 and 04/19/2020 (“early COVID”) using Poisson regression. We performed qualitative analysis on a subset of messages exchanged between 02/01/2020 and 03/31/2020. Between “Pre-COVID” and “early COVID” periods, weekly member and provider messaging rates increased significantly. Of the messages analyzed qualitatively, most (53.3%) addressed medical topics, and more than a fifth (21.3%) addressed social issues. COVID-related messages often focused on care coordination and risk information; half of COVID messages contained rapport-building. PL patients (“members”) and providers used in-app secure messaging to reach out to one another, identifying needs, organizing receipt of healthcare resources, and strengthening patient-care team relationships. These findings underscore the importance of low-barrier messaging during a crisis.