A prospective study of patients adherence towards anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) in Hospital Tuanku Ja’afar, Seremban

This study investigated the factors that may affect adherence to antiretroviral therapy in patients with HIV infection and to compare the reasons given by patients with lower adherence with those given by patients with higher adherence. The objectives of this study were to identify barriers and facilitating factors of antiretroviral adherence in Hospital Tuanku Ja’afar Seremban. Another objective is to determine relationship between patient knowledge and adherence to antiretroviral therapy and try to evaluate the data of reasons that given by the patients to come out the approachable ideas in order to solve the issues. This research used both qualitative and quantitative methods. The quantitative methods include prospective review of patient medical records to extract baseline data on CD4. The qualitative methods were including focus group discussions with patients on HAART. Base on CD4 count and patient appointment register were used for purpose of selecting the participants for the focus group discussion. Study was performed by interviewing the HIV patients who on HAART therapy at HTJS. Questionnaires were given to the patients when they came for the counseling every Friday. The qualitative data collected were analyzed to gain understanding using the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS). 30 patients receiving HAART were taken into study. By using Morisky Score, it proved that 66.7% (20) of the subjects were adhering or complies with their HAART regime. In the other side, only 33.3% (10) of the subjects were not adhering to HAART regime. There were a significant between Morisky Score and adherence of patients. Patients who got CD4 counts higher, they also scored Morisky higher. We identified that there was a relationship between knowledge of the patients and adherence to HAART. The higher the patient knowledge about HIV also HAART regime, the higher the compliance or adherence rate for HAART regime. This report summarizes the major reasons for poor patient adherence regimen complexity, poor tolerability, and metabolic side effects and provides patient-friendly approaches that can be adopted in the context of the office visit to increase patients’ level of adherence to these challenging regimens.