Table 2.

Summary of evidence from all studies by outcome

Outcomes	Overall Quality of Evidence		Impact of the intervention	Evidence from Economic Evaluation		Comments
	Number of Studies	Overall Quality of the Body of Evidence (Good, Fair, Poor)	i Expected Impact (High, Moderate, Low)	Number of studies	Quality of evidence from economic evaluation
Mortality	1 [17]	Fair	Moderate	None	N/A	Some support group characteristics described in the S. Africa settings do provide some important lessons.
Morbidity	7 [15, 18, 21, 23–26]	Fair	High	None	N/A	Almost all studies were cross sectional or qualitative and only demonstrate associations. Different outcomes for morbidity were used in the different studies
Retention in Care	5 [15–17, 19, 27]	Fair	High	None	N/A	Results from several large cohorts demonstrate sustained retention especially in ART patients
Quality of Life	7 [18, 22, 30–34, ]	Poor	Moderate	None	N/A	As reported, the studies all used different measures of quality of life. All reported outcomes would have an impact on quality of life for PLHIV directly or indirectly
HIV Transmission	7 [20, 21, 30, 31, 35, 36, 37]	Poor	Uncertain	None	N/A	Three of the four studies were conducted in S. Africa, with mixed results. One study conducted elsewhere had mixed results and involved non-representative sample of participants from each country.

ⁱThe expected impact of the intervention was rated as; High=Intervention expected to have a high impact on the outcome, Moderate=Likely to have a moderate impact on the outcome, Low=Intervention expected to have a low impact on the outcome and, Uncertain=Available information is not adequate to assess estimated impact on the outcome.

Note, assessment of the expected impact of the intervention was based on published evidence. Additional considerations that would inform implementation decisions would have to take into account the cost effectiveness information and country specific contextual considerations.