Mobile Health Interventions for Antiretroviral Therapy Adherence
Summary
Mobile health (mHealth) interventions harness mobile and wireless technologies to bolster adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART), a cornerstone of HIV treatment and prevention. Interventions range from simple short message service (SMS) reminders and app-based platforms to digital adherence tools (DAT) with electronic dispensers and community health worker applications. By delivering real-time prompts, personalised educational content and bidirectional support, these approaches address challenges such as medication forgetfulness, stigma, geographical barriers and resource constraints. Formative research emphasises the importance of confidential, culturally sensitive messaging, while implementation studies highlight the role of community health workforce strategies in extending care beyond clinic walls. Accumulating evidence indicates that interactive or tailored messaging can improve adherence and clinic attendance, contributing to viral suppression targets. Current priorities include optimising engagement strategies, evaluating long-term clinical benefits and ensuring scalability and cost-effectiveness across diverse global settings.
Research from Nature Portfolio
Recent trials have tested weekly interactive SMS interventions aimed at enhancing retention and adherence within prevention programmes. In one randomised study in East Africa, participants received a weekly two-way text “How are you?” and were followed up by healthcare workers if they signalled difficulties or did not respond. The intervention was feasible and well accepted but did not significantly improve retention in care up to 18 months postpartum compared with standard services. These findings underscore the complexity of sustaining patient engagement over extended periods and suggest that message frequency, content and integration with comprehensive support systems must be finely tuned to yield durable adherence benefits.
Mobile Health Interventions for Antiretroviral Therapy Adherence publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in mobile health interventions for antiretroviral therapy adherence across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
mHealth: The use of mobile and wireless technologies to support health services and information delivery.
Antiretroviral therapy (ART): A drug regimen that suppresses HIV replication, improves immune function and reduces morbidity and transmission.
Adherence: The extent to which patients take medications correctly as prescribed regarding dose, timing and frequency.
Short message service (SMS): Text messaging delivered via mobile networks, often used for reminders and health communications.
Digital adherence tool (DAT): A technology, such as an electronic pillbox, that records dosing events and can trigger reminders.
Community health worker: A lay or trained health provider who delivers basic health services and support within the community.
References
- Developing contents for a digital adherence tool: A formative mixed-methods study among children and adolescents living with HIV in Tanzania. PLOS Digital Health (2023).
- Effectiveness of mHealth on Adherence to Antiretroviral Therapy in Patients Living With HIV: Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. JMIR mHealth and uHealth (2023).
- The Infomóvel—An information system for managing HIV/AIDS patients in rural areas of Mozambique. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making (2023).
- The effect of an interactive weekly text-messaging intervention on retention in prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV care: a randomised controlled trial (WelTel PMTCT). Scientific Reports (2023).
About these summaries
This Nature Research Intelligence Topic summary is created with the cited references and a large language model. We take care to ground generated text with facts, and have systems in place to gain human feedback on the overall quality of the process in line with our AI principles. We strive to create accurate and useful summaries for people unfamiliar with the research topic and that supports this goal. These pages are a beta release and will be updated as we learn how best to help people gain value from a research topic summary.
Turn complex research questions into confident strategic decisions
When you're under pressure to set direction, justify investment, or understand your competitive position, you need more than raw data — you need trusted insights you can act on.
Benchmark your performance against global peers using robust, methodologically sound analysis.
Combine quantitative metrics with qualitative expert insight to uncover strengths, gaps and emerging opportunities.
Gain tailored, decision-ready recommendations aligned to your strategic priorities.
Talk to us to learn more about our data dashboards and bespoke strategy reports.
Grow research skills, confidence and careers with training built for every stage of the research lifecycle.
Developed with Nature Portfolio journal Editors and internationally renowned experts. Discover three ways to learn:
Self-paced, online courses in convenient bite-sized units, covering key skills across scientific writing, publishing, grant writing, data analysis, and more.
Expert trainer-led workshops with hands-on exercises and real-time feedback across core research skills, delivered via interactive group sessions.
Editor-led workshops combining core principles in writing and publishing, personalised 1:1 feedback from Nature Portfolio Editors and hands-on exercises.
Explore course catalogues and workshop agendas, enquire about the options or request institutional pricing.