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Barriers to adherence to antiretroviral therapy among adult patients in a rural hospital in the Eastern Cape

Magister Public Health - MPH / Antiretroviral therapy (ART) improves the quality of lives of people living with HIV/AIDS by suppressing HIV replication and improving the patient’s immunity. An improved immunity will help prevent patients from contracting opportunistic infections. Adherence to ART is vital to obtain good clinical outcome for patients. Defaulting ART leads to increase in viral load, decreased host immunity, development of HIV drug resistant strains, exposure to opportunistic infections and ultimately death. HIV positive patients who are on ART face many challenges in adhering to their medications, these challenges act as barriers to their adherence to treatment. This study explores the barriers that adult patients in a hospital in
Eastern Cape of South Africa face while on treatment. These barriers include individual factors, socio-economic factors, health service factors, medical regimen factors.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uwc/oai:etd.uwc.ac.za:11394/3926
Date January 2013
CreatorsAkusoba, Kenechukwu Okechukwu
ContributorsVan Wyk, Brian
PublisherUniversity of Western Cape
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
RightsUniversity of Western Cape

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