A multicountry European study on Succeed: a general quality improvement tool in HIV prevention

The context-sensitive nature of the European HIV epidemic (e.g. differences in key populations, prevention settings, resource commitments) makes it challenging to monitor and evaluate HIV prevention and sexual health promotion programs. Systematic quality improvement (QI) tools and quality indicators adapted to HIV prevention are not widely known or implemented. The European 'Quality Action' introduced five such tools in 26 countries involving 45 nongovernmental and governmental organizations during 2014-2016. Approximately, half of the organizations used the tool 'Succeed'. This study aims to describe challenges and supportive factors in its use, and answers the research question if Succeed can be applied as a general QI tool despite the high contextuality of the European HIV prevention field. Mixed method research was conducted: data from quantitative pre- and post-training and implementation surveys were triangulated with qualitative data from multiple data sources analysed inductively. In a second analytical step, Chaudoir's evidence-based framework on implementation of innovations (2013) guided the data analysis on five levels: policy, organization, functionality of the tool, results and perceived innovations. Succeed contributed to goal and result orientation, facilitated stakeholders' participation and contributed to organizational development. Succeed was used in similar ways and with similar results across different policy contexts, types of organizations, target groups and interventions. Contributing factors for sustainable implementation were supporting environments, sufficient resources and a strategy for training tool users. Findings strongly support the use of Succeed as a general QI tool to monitor, document, adapt and improve HIV prevention and sexual health promotion work across Europe.