Adherence to Anti Retroviral Therapy of People Living with HIV/AIDS: a Cross Sectional Survey

Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART) is the drug of choice in the treatment of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). More than 95% adherence to ART is necessary to achieve suppression of HIV replication. Therefore, a cross sectional study was undertaken to assess the adherence of patients with HIV/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) to ART. The study also intended to identify the relationship of adherence with the socio-demographic and clinical variables. The study was conducted at the ART clinic of a tertiary care hospital, with a sample size of 100. The study participants were chosen using systematic random sampling technique. Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS) was used to measure the adherence behavior of People Living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (PLHIV) and Patient recall and Pill count method to assess their actual drug intake.

The study findings revealed that 53 (53%) subjects had high adherence behavior, 32 (32%) had medium adherence behavior and 15 (15%) of them had low adherence behavior to ART. Regarding the drug intake, out of 100 subjects, 12(12%) were found to be non-adherent and the remaining 88 (88%) to be adherent to ART. Results had also shown that there was a statistically significant relationship between the adherence and duration of HIV infection and duration of ART.