A research report submitted to the faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Science Degree in Epidemiology. / Antiretroviral therapy (ART) recommendations among HIV – infected pregnant women have been revised several times by the World Health Organization (WHO). Option B+, which is the latest recommendation continues to be rolled out in several countries across the globe but mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Retention in care and adherence to antiretroviral (ARV) drugs taken by these women remains unclear in this new program. We assessed ability to stay in care (retention) and adherence to ART among HIV – infected women starting life-long treatment during pregnancy and after, at an HIV care and treatment clinic in Ifakara Tanzania. Our study provided an opportunity to understand the trends in adherence to ART and retention in care for this population.
Methods
We analyzed data of HIV-infected pregnant women registered and starting ART for the first time in the Kilombero and Ulanga Antiretroviral Cohort in 2009 and 2010 with a follow up period of up to two years to 2011 and 2012 respectively. Adherence was by patient self-report (PSR) and was sufficient (good) if the woman took all the prescribed pills of the issued batch or insufficient (poor) if she missed two or more pills. Women that missed two or more consecutive scheduled visits to the clinic were not retained while those that honored their scheduled visits were retained in care. Two sample t test and Wilcoxon rank sum test were used to test predictor outcome associations for continuous variables while Pearson’s and Fisher’s exact tests were used for categorical ones. Hazard ratios of each predictor variable were calculated using Cox regression.
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Results
A total of 1,282 HIV – infected women were registered in KIULARCO between 2009 and 2010. Fifty (50) were pregnant and started life-long ART upon registration in this period. Of these, 25 (50%) were registered in 2009 and the other 25 (50%) in 2010. Slightly more than half, 52.2% had CD4 cell counts above 350cells/mm3. Almost half, 49% of the women were registered in their final (third) pregnancy trimester. About 82% were in WHO stage one and 60% of all the 50 women were initiated on AZT/3TC/EFV regimen. Only 5.7% had secondary education while the rest had primary or no education at all. Of the women that reported their partners HIV state, 54.5% had partners that had never tested for HIV.
Adherence for all participants was reported as sufficient (good) for the entire period the women were in care. No one had insufficient (poor) adherence. Retention in care was higher during pregnancy than after delivery. Generally, loss to follow up was 40%. About 30% were lost during pregnancy and the majority, 70% lost after they had delivered their babies. There was no evidence to prove that any of the factors studied independently predicted non retention. The most likely time to non retention was six months after delivery.
Conclusions
Our study, despite small sample size, shows that among women diagnosed HIV – infected and starting life-long ART during pregnancy (Option B+), adherence to ART is sufficient and retention in care similar during and after pregnancy. Counseling on the importance of staying in care especially around the first few months after delivery should be emphasized at ANC.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/17390 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Jingo, JohnPaul Kasule |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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