Objective: To study on the compliance antiretroviral(ARV) drugs and interrelated factors of HIV/AIDS patients undertaking highly active antiretroviral therapy(HAART) to improve clinical treatment.
Methods: 3 counties in Henan province were selected including 2 counties from China Cares Program points and one county where HIV/AIDS was serious. All cases studied had already received antiretroviral therapy (ART) for 2-12 months. Several indicators through questionnaire were studied including drug adherence, side effect, symptoms status before and after treatment and ART measures etc. At the same time, blood was collected to analyze CD4+ T-lymphocyte, the virus loads of HIV and drug genotype resistance by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).
Results: In the therapy group, most patients had taken ARV drugs for 4-8 months, which accounted for 78.24% of the total number, with the adherence rate above 90% as 67.51%. The main reason for the patients not listening to their doctor's advice was due to ART drug's side effects (66.95%), including queasiness, vomiting and tetter. In the therapy group, 82.57% of patients' symptoms were obvious. Adherence had a great impact on the improvement (P < 0.05). After therapy, the total count of patients' CD4+ T-lymphocyte's kept stable or improved with slow speed. At the time of 3 months and 6 months after ART, the rates of improvement were 55.1% and 50.8%. However CD4+ count did not show much difference between the twe group. The prevalence rate of HIV drug resistance strain roise from 13.9% in non-remedial group to 45.4% at the time of 3 months after therapy and 62.7% at the time of 6 months after therapy. The resistance against non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI) had improved obviously.
Conclusion: Patients with HIV/AIDS receiving HAART, compliance seemed directly affect the curative effect and the implementation of therapy schedule and should be improved to avoid drug resistance.