Project Nasah recruited over 400 black Africans with HIV in the UK to investigate their HIV treatment information and other needs. A total of 435 people were interviewed for the study, their age and sex being representative of the demographics of the African HIV community in the UK. Interviewees were recruited by African interviewers through peer networks in London, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and Oxfordshire.

Anti-HIV therapy was currently being taken by 73% of the sample, with people reporting that they were unemployed, off sick or retired most likely to report use of HAART.

Eight times as many HIV-positive Africans living in the UK have problems with knowledge about their HIV treatments as HIV-positive white British, but are nevertheless just as likely to adhere to treatment.
Although 36% reported problems with adherence in Nasah, this was comparable to the 31% of What do you need?
Although the majority of people interviewed in the Nasah study said that they had had no problems obtaining HIV treatment information in the last year, 27% did report difficulties and this figure is eight times greater than the white British sample in What do you need? 36% said that they were dissatisfied with their knowledge of treatments. One in seven Africans said they did not know enough about the medication they were taking currently, and 32% indicated that they felt unsure that they knew all they should.
The authors suggest that recent HIV diagnosis may explain the larger proportion of Africans who reported difficulties or said they needed to know more about treatments.
Areas of knowledge felt to be most lacking were:

• Lipodystrophy (63% not satisfied or unsure they knew enough).
• Clinical trials (65%).
• Side-effects of treatment (38%).
• Illnesses related to HIV (37%).
• Resistance (38%).
• Looking after children (37%).
• Pregnancy and HIV (35%).

Treatment information interventions

Talking with medical staff was overwhelmingly judged by Africans to be the method that had been most important to them in finding out about anti-HIV treatments - 63% reported it to be the most important method, compared to 11% who cited talking to other people with HIV, and 6% who reported talking to workers from HIV organisations as the most important method.
Forty one per cent said that they always understood what medical staff told them, and 56% said that they `usually` understood. Three per cent never understood what they were told, and 16% of current treatment takers never told their clinician that they had missed doses
Oral sources had been thought to be the most important source of treatment information, but Nasah found that over 90% had read treatment newsletters or leaflets in the past year, 86% had found them an important learning tool and 74% wanted to access them in the future.
In addition, nearly two-third of the sample reported wanting to read more about treatments. Nor did stigma or fear of disclosure of health status appear to deter people from having HIV information in their homes, with 86% saying that they took HIV treatment information home with them from the clinic and 27% reporting a subscription to an HIV treatments newsletter.