Adherence To Antiretroviral Therapy And Quality Of Life Of HIV/AIDS In Rural Northern Anhui

ObjectiveTo explore the level of adherence to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) andquality of life in HIV/AIDS patients and related factors in rural northern Anhui. It couldprovide the foundation to take actions for the related government department to enhancethe level of adherence and quality of life among HIV/AIDS patients.MethodsLinquan, one county of Anhui Province, is selected as the target field, and122HIV/AIDS patients who receiving free highly active antiretroviral therapy wereinvestigated. The questionnaire consisted of demographic characteristics, questionsrelated with adherence, and MOS-HIV. Face to face interview was conducted tocollect data. EpiData3.1was used to establish a database and SPSS13.0was used forthe statistical analysis to the collection data, which was processed withχ2-test,t-test,binary logistic regression and univariate linear analysis.Results89patients reported≥95%adherence in the last month (77.9%).There were22.1%ofthe patients falling to the category of poor adherence to HAART. The most reasons ofmissing doses were farming，forgetting to take medicine and not staying at home. Wedid not find the difference about adherence in social demographic characteristics,treatment, AIDS related knowledge, drinking, a special supervisor for patients takingthe medication(p＞0.05),but whether there is a special way reminds the patients of taking the medication is the factor related to the adherence of HAART（p﹤0.05）.Single factor analysis shows that the scores of physical dimensions are statisticallysignificant differences among age, antiviral treatment time, drinking (p﹤0.05), thescores of psychological dimensions are statistically significant differences among sex,occupation, education, average per capita income, adherence, drinking(p﹤0.05).Univariate linear analysis shows that low age group，long antiviraltreatment, bettereducation, high per capita income and antiviraltreatment medication adherence are theimportant influencing factors of the quality of life.ConclusionThe results indicated that the antiretroviral adherence in rural northern Anhui was inmoderate level. It is necessary to improve their adherence to HAART. Health careproviders should provide continuous support and individualized interventions toimprove patients’ medication knowledge and self-efficacy， and enhance theirmedication adherence and quality of life.