title: eHealth interventions for HIV prevention in high-risk men who have sex with men: a systematic review.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  While the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) incidence rate has remained steady in most groups, the overall incidence of HIV among men who have sex with men (MSM) has been steadily increasing in the United States. eHealth is a platform for health behavior change interventions and provides new opportunities for the delivery of HIV prevention messages.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this systematic review was to examine the use of eHealth interventions for HIV prevention in high-risk MSM.
  
  
  METHODS
  We systematically searched PubMed, OVID, ISI Web of Knowledge, Google Scholar, and Google for articles and grey literature reporting the original results of any studies related to HIV prevention in MSM and developed a standard data collection form to extract information on study characteristics and outcome data.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In total, 13 articles met the inclusion criteria, of which five articles targeted HIV testing behaviors and eight focused on decreasing HIV risk behaviors. Interventions included Web-based education modules, text messaging (SMS, short message service), chat rooms, and social networking. The methodological quality of articles ranged from 49.4-94.6%. Wide variation in the interventions meant synthesis of the results using meta-analysis would not be appropriate.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This review shows evidence that eHealth for HIV prevention in high-risk MSM has the potential to be effective in the short term for reducing HIV risk behaviors and increasing testing rates. Given that many of these studies were short term and had other limitations, but showed strong preliminary evidence of improving outcomes, additional work needs to rigorously assess the use of eHealth strategies for HIV prevention in high-risk MSM.
authors.affiliation: Columbia University, School of Nursing, New York, NY, United States. rb897@columbia.edu.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schnall
authors.forename: Jasmine
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Travers
authors.forename: Marlene
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rojas
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Carballo-Diéguez
mesh_terms: D015658:HIV Infections / Q000517:prevention & control*; D015438:Health Behavior; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D018451:Homosexuality, Male; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D040242:Risk Reduction Behavior; D012309:Risk-Taking; D017216:Telemedicine; D060145:Text Messaging
keywords: HIV prevention; HIV risk behaviors; HIV testing; Internet; SMS; eHealth; high-risk MSM