A Scoping Review of Implementation Strategies for Addressing Barriers to HIV Care among People Living with HIV (PLWHIV) in Africa

Introduction: People living with HIV (PLWHIV) often face barriers that can impede their ability to achieve optimal HIV prevention and care outcomes. Implementation strategies have been developed to address these barriers and improve the delivery and uptake of evidence-based interventions for PLWHIV. Despite the availability of implementation strategies, it remains unclear which strategies are most effective in improving HIV prevention and care outcomes among PLWHIV, and how they can be tailored to different populations and settings. This scoping review aims to explore the current state of knowledge on implementation strategies for addressing treatment barriers among people living with HIV (PLWHIV). Methods and analysis: The review will examine studies published in the past ten years that have evaluated implementation strategies for improving HIV prevention and care outcomes among PLWHIV. The review will include randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental studies, and observational studies that have assessed the effectiveness of implementation strategies for addressing treatment barriers, such as medication adherence, retention in care, and engagement in HIV prevention and care services. The review will be conducted using the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) scoping review methodology, which involves a comprehensive search of multiple databases, including PubMed, Embase, and PsycINFO, as well as a manual search of the reference lists of relevant articles. Data extraction will be performed by two reviewers independently, and a narrative synthesis of the findings will be conducted. The scoping review will provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge on implementation strategies for addressing treatment barriers among PLWHIV, and identify gaps in the literature that may warrant further research. The findings of this scoping review will be useful for researchers, clinicians, and policy-makers in developing and implementing effective interventions to improve HIV prevention and care outcomes among PLWHIV. Ethics and dissemination: Ethical review is not required for scoping reviews since they involve the analysis of secondary data collected from publicly available sources. The synthesized data from the review will be shared with researchers, public health authorities, and other relevant stakeholders through peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations, ensuring proper dissemination of the findings.