AB139. Enhancing and monitoring HIV treatment adherence in Indonesia through a telemedicine mobile app: pilot development

Background: Adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) is a critical component in the management of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Numerous challenges influence diminished patient adherence, from healthcare management issues, stigma, and patients’ personal constraints. These persistent barriers threaten long-term treatment outcomes and highlight the need for scalable, patient-centered approaches that can support continuity of care beyond conventional face-to-face services. In this context, telemedicine has emerged as a promising strategy to enhance access, monitoring, and engagement in ART adherence, particularly in resource-limited and stigmatized settings. This study aims to develop a telemedicine-based mobile application and assess its usability as a tool for monitoring adherence to ART.

Methods: The study was conducted as a preliminary study by utilizing the Analyze-Design-Development-Implement-Evaluate (ADDIE) framework. Usability was measured by content and media experts’ validation and targeted prospective users by the System Usability Scale questionnaire.

Results: Research findings indicate the prototype effectively meets patients’ expectations to increase adherence to their medication schedules, facilitates online consultations with healthcare providers, and improves social support among patients via the peer-support feature. This application garnered favorable assessments from both users and experts. Validation by material experts indicated a feasibility score of 89%, which was categorized as “very good”, whereas validation by media experts yielded a score of 88.57%, which was also classified as “very good”. The usability test results indicate an average score of 77.29%, classified as “acceptable”.

Conclusions: The development has the potential to serve as an innovative tool to enhance ART adherence and facilitate technology-based HIV/AIDS management, particularly in Indonesia.

Keywords: Antiretroviral therapy adherence (ART adherence); human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS); telemedicine; usability evaluation