Investigating the limitations associated with the snowball model “Bring your friends”/ “Treat your friends” in context of the TAP study.

The Treatment and Prevention study (TAP) was a world first clinical trial of DAA treatment for a group of people who inject drugs (PWID). The idea is that individuals are treated for hepatitis C together with people with whom they inject drugs, in order to prevent reinfection after successful treatment. In the TAP study participants are asked how many people they have injected with (same time and place) over the last 6 months and how many in the last month? Despite often reporting injecting with many people participants have mostly only brought a couple of friends into the study. The following research questions are of interest: 1. From a PWID perspective, what were the limitations (social, financial, cultural and circumstantial) to TAP participants bringing their whole injecting networks to receive DAA therapy as offered in the TAP study? 2. If they were willing to participate, what factors limited their friends from participating in DAA treatment? 3. From a PWID perspective, what changes could be made or what services could be offered to facilitate the full network in seeking/participating in treatment? 4. From a PWID perspective, what attitude shifts of behavioural changes must take place to make seeking DAA favourable? What promotion strategies or changes could the health system implement to facilitate these shifts? This is a mixed methods study will conduct in-depth interviews with TAP participants who have finished treatment and ask what were the things that limited their friends also coming in for treatment.