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Adherence to highly active antiretroviral therapy in Hyderabad, India: barriers, facilitators and identification of target groups

journal contribution
posted on 2017-03-01, 00:00 authored by M. S. Dworkin, G. W. Douglas, G. P. S. Rani, A Chakraborty
We assessed the barriers and facilitators to highly active antiretroviral therapy adherence and determined their prevalence among HIV/AIDS patients in Hyderabad, India. We conducted a cross-sectional study among HIV-infected adults prescribed highly active antiretroviral therapy and receiving care from nine clinics. Depression was screened using Patient Health Questionnaire 9 and facilitators of HIV medication adherence were assessed using an 11-item scale which yielded a total positive attitude to disease score. Prevalence ratios of non-adherence between different categories of potential risk factors were calculated. We compared mean ‘facilitators to adherence’ scores between the adherent and non-adherent population. Multivariable Poisson regression with robust variance was used to identify independent risk factors. Among the 211 respondents, nearly 20% were non-adherent, approximately 8% had either moderately severe or severe depression and mean score for combined facilitators to medication adherence was 33.35 (±7.88) out of a possible 44 points. Factors significantly associated with non-adherence included older age, female sex worker, moderate-to-severe depression and the combined facilitators to medication adherence score. These data from a broad range of clinical settings in Hyderabad reveal that key groups to focus on for adherence intervention are female sex workers, older persons and those with depression.

History

Publisher Statement

This is a copy of an article published in International Journal of STD and AIDS. © 2015 SAGE Publications. © 2015 The Author(s).

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Language

  • en_US

issn

0956-4624

Issue date

2016-03-01

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