Guo, YanLi, YingqiYu, ChuanchuanXu, HeHong, Y AliciaWang, XiaolanZhang, NanxiangZeng, YuMonroe-Wise, AlizaLi, LinghuaLiu, CongCai, WeipingLin, Aihua2023-11-062023-11-062022-06-28Guo Y, Li Y, Yu C, Xu H, Hong YA, Wang X, Zhang N, Zeng Y, Monroe-Wise A, Li L, Liu C, Cai W, Lin A. Long-term Effects of a Social Media-Based Intervention (Run4Love) on Depressive Symptoms of People Living With HIV: 3-Year Follow-up of a Randomized Controlled Trial. J Med Internet Res. 2022 Jun 28;24(6):e36809. doi: 10.2196/36809. PMID: 35763324; PMCID: PMC9277532.1438-887110.2196/3680935763324https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/52698Background: Emerging studies have shown the effectiveness of mobile health (mHealth) interventions in reducing depressive symptoms among people living with HIV. Most of these studies included only short-term follow-up, with limited data on long-term effects. Objective: The purpose of this study is to assess the long-term effects of a randomized controlled trial called Run4Love on depressive symptoms among people living with HIV at 1-year and 3-year follow-ups. Methods: A total of 300 people living with HIV with depressive symptoms were recruited and randomized to an intervention or a control group in Guangzhou, China, from September 2017 to January 2018. The intervention group received a 3-month Run4Love program, including adapted evidence-based cognitive behavioral stress management courses and exercise promotion via WeChat (Tencent), a popular social media app. The control group received usual care and a brochure on nutrition. The primary outcome was reduction in depressive symptoms, measured using the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CES-D) scale. Data used in this study were collected at baseline and at the 1-year and 3-year follow-ups. Generalized estimating equations were used to examine the group differences at 1-year and 3-year follow-ups. Results: Approximately half of the participants completed the assessment at 1-year (149/300, 49.7%) and 3-year (177/300, 59%) follow-ups. At 1-year follow-up, participants in the intervention group reported significant reduction in depressive symptoms compared with the control group (CES-D: from 23.9 to 18.1 in the intervention group vs from 24.3 to 23.3 in the control group; mean -4.79, SD 13.56; 95% CI -7.78 to -1.81; P=.002). At 3-year follow-up, between-group difference in CES-D remained statistically significant (from 23.9 to 20.5 in the intervention group vs from 24.3 to 24.4 in the control group; mean -3.63, SD 13.35; 95% CI -6.71 to -0.54; P=.02). No adverse events were reported during the 3-year follow-up period. Conclusions: The mHealth intervention, Run4Love, significantly reduced depressive symptoms among people living with HIV, and the intervention effects were sustained at 1-year and 3-year follow-ups. Further research is needed to explore the mechanisms of the long-term effects of mHealth interventions such as Run4Love and to implement these effective interventions among people living with HIV. Trial registration: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry ChiCTR-IPR-17012606; https://trialsearch.who.int/Trial2.aspx?TrialID=ChiCTR-IPR-17012606. International registered report identifier (irrid): RR2-10.2196/10274.en©Yan Guo, Yingqi Li, Chuanchuan Yu, He Xu, Y Alicia Hong, Xiaolan Wang, Nanxiang Zhang, Yu Zeng, Aliza Monroe-Wise, Linghua Li, Cong Liu, Weiping Cai, Aihua Lin. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 28.06.2022. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.Attribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/HIVdepressive symptomslong-term intervention effectmHealthmobile healthsocial media–basedJournal ArticleJournal of medical Internet research