Study the drug adherence and possible factor influencing drug adherence in HIV/AIDS patients in north eastern part of India

Majority of HIV/AIDS patients who are on Highly Active Anti Retroviral Therapy (HAART), are not aware about drug adherence and its importance which is the most important factor for drug adherence.

To study the level of drug adherence in patients accessing antiretroviral therapy (ART) through the National program and factor influencing drug adherence.

In present study, we enrolled 102 newly diagnosed patients, among them in 79 patients, ART was started. To study the drug adherence a pretested, semistructured questionnaire was formed and patients were followed up for 6 months of the study. Pretest and posttest counseling was done to all such patients.

A total of 28 patients missed the dose in 1st follow-up, nine patients missed in 2nd follow-up, eight patients missed in 3rd follow-up. Three patients lost follow-up in 2nd follow-up, three patients further lost follow-up in 3rd follow-up. Running out of pills (40.0%), side effect (15.5%), and family problem (13.3%), poor transport facility for taking drug (8.9%) and forgetfulness (11.1%) are five major causes related to miss dose. In females patients, drug adherence (69%) was initially less than male patients (76%) but latter on female patients (96.3%) had better adherence than males (95.2%).

This study suggest that drug adherence can be increased by proper counseling and close monitoring of the patients which may have a great role in preventing the drug resistance and ART response.