Transgender Education for Affirmative and Competent HIV and Healthcare (TEACHH)
The TEACHH intervention is a workshop for healthcare providers focused on increasing their gender-affirming HIV care competency and reducing HIV and trans stigma, factors that impact trans women’s access to HIV prevention, treatment and support.
What is TEACHH?
About the Study
Transgender (trans) women often face significant barriers to accessing gender-affirming HIV prevention and care. These barriers stem from a lack of provider knowledge, limited competency in trans-specific care, and pervasive anti-trans and HIV-related stigmas in healthcare and social service settings. To address these challenges, we developed and evaluated the Transgender Education for Affirmative and Competent HIV and Healthcare (TEACHH) intervention. We used two structured processes of intervention adaptation and development (Card’s 7 Steps, ADAPT-ITT model) and proposed a theoretically informed intervention drawing on the Information-Motivation-Behavioural Skills model.
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This community-informed and theoretically grounded program aimed to enhance providers’ knowledge, competency, and attitudes towards offering gender-affirming HIV prevention and care for trans women living with or affected by HIV.
The study involved 78 healthcare and social service providers (including physicians, nurses, and social workers) across multiple sites.
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Key Findings:
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The intervention was highly feasible, with a 100% workshop completion rate, and well-received, with 91.9% of participants expressing interest in further training.
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Significant improvements were observed in providers’ perceived competency, knowledge, and attitudes toward gender-affirming HIV care and general healthcare for trans individuals.
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Participants with less prior experience working with trans and transfeminine clients showed the greatest improvements, highlighting the intervention's effectiveness in reaching those with limited trans-specific knowledge.
This brief intervention showed promise in improving gender-affirming provider knowledge, perceived competency, and attitudes/biases, particularly among those with less trans and HIV experience. This study demonstrates the potential of the TEACHH intervention to improve gender-affirming healthcare and reduce stigma among providers.