Integrating Psychosocial Interventions And Support Into Hiv Services For Adolescents And Young Adults

Integrating psychosocial interventions and support into HIV services for adolescents and young adults

This technical brief seeks to establish the importance of implementing psychosocial interventions to optimize HIV outcomes and support mental health for adolescents and young people living with HIV; to provide evidence included in the recent WHO guidelines to educate on how this can and has been done; and to chart a way forward for the integration of mental health and HIV services for this population. It provides approaches and examples of integration of interventions within health services.

Implementing WHO evidence-based interventions for adolescents and young adults living with and at risk of HIV

Combination prevention, treatment and care programmes use a mix of evidence-based interventions to meet the current HIV prevention needs of adolescents and young adults. However, there needs to be a focus on priority interventions that are evidence-based, practical, contextual and sustainable. This document highlights interventions and recommendations that have passed through the evidence-based lens of the WHO. Building on a large body of evidence that has informed WHO guidelines, this document seeks to accomplish two objectives: To highlight and prioritize evidence-based interventions and recommendations across the HIV cascade that focus on adolescents and young adults, as well as those for general populations with specific relevance for this younger age group as well as to identify implementation considerations and research gaps that are central to the effective translation of these guidelines from evidence into practice. The needs of adolescents transcend HIV. While this document focuses largely on the HIV cascade, adolescent relevant recommendations from tuberculosis (TB), sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and Hepatitis B and C, are also featured given the syndemics of HIV, STIs and Hepatitis.

Integration of mental health and HIV interventions