NCT06814041

Pilot RCT and Interview Study on an HIV Chatbot in Nigeria

A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial and an Interview Study to Evaluate a Chatbot for People Living With HIV in Nigeria

• Status: Active Not Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 314 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Christoph Pimmer · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This study will investigate the use of a HIV chatbot that acts as an informational coach. The main question the study aims to answer is: Does the chatbot improve HIV knowledge in adults (older than 18-years) newly diagnosed with HIV in Nigeria - compared to a control group? Moreover, the study will also determine potential effects of the chatbot use on patients' resilience, psychological well-being. The study will explore patients' use and perceptions of the chatbot, as well as potential gender differences. The control group will receive Standard of Care only. Patients in the chatbot intervention group will interact with the chatbot in addition to receiving Standard of Care. They will be able to: * Use a chatbot via WhatsApp * Receive information on relevant HIV topics * Get automated responses to their HIV-related questions * Be reminded of medical appointments and medication schedules

Conditions

• HIV

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Chatbot as an informational coach	The chatbot acts as an empathic informational coach, performing three main functions: (1) offering short conversation sessions about key topics on living with HIV; (2) responding to users' ad-hoc questions on HIV; (3) reminding users of medical appointments and drug taking. The chatbot comprises a conversational system, utilizing WhatsApp for user interaction, with messages routed through the backend Voiceflow. User can access the chatbot system via WhatsApp. That means that they access the chatbot like any other contact in their WhatsApp chat list. The bot incorporates mostly text-based input- and output modalities, and a few images, which are more protective of users' privacy than speech. Concretely, chatbot users interact with the chatbot on WhatsApp by selecting from pre-defined options (buttons) or, in some parts, writing text.

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-04-14
• Primary completion: 2026-02-18
• Completion: 2026-06-20
• First posted: 2025-02-07
• Last updated: 2026-01-23

Locations

6 sites across 1 country: Nigeria