The impact of MTAC services towards HIV patient's knowledge and adherence on anti retroviral medications at Hospital Teluk Intan

Background: In Malaysia, there is a lack of awareness and inadequate knowledge about use of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) leading to intentional non-adherence among Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infected patients thus, educational intervention which is RVD-MTAC must be sought. Counseling or patient education can provide benefits in terms of patient adherence and understanding towards a certain disease and its management.
Need for the study: There is a need for RVD-MTAC for HIV-infected patients for improving adherence to Antiretroviral Therapy (ART).
Aim: To determine the impact of MT AC services towards knowledge and adherence among HIV patients in Hospital Teluk Intan.
Method : A prospective cohort study was conducted at Klinik Pakar Perubatan in Hospital Teluk Intan from January 2016 to February 2016 in HIV infected patients. This study will be carried out by distributing questionnaire to patients with the help of pharmacist in order to access pre- and post- knowledge and adherence on HIV medications. All data were key-in using PASW (Predictive Analytic Software) version 18. Next, demographic data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics which some data are presented as table and pie chart to show the proportions for all variables such as gender, age, knowledge and adherence. Level of knowledge was determined for each respondent based on their answer on questions in section B and the same data analysis was done for adherence section in C. Chi-square test was used where p-value is <0.05 is set as significant for determine the association between social demographic factor between knowledge and adherence.
Results:. A total of20 (100%) HIV positive patients were enrolled. None of them reported of having a high level of medication adherence, 19 respondents (95.0%) described of having medium level of medication adherence while the others 1 respondent (5.0%) categorized as having a low level of medication adherence.
Conclusion: The MT AC services on use of HAART in this study changed their intentional non-adherence behavior and increases their knowledge about HIV disease and the treatment.