Publications

HIV is a global public health issue. In 2015 an estimated 36.7 million people were living withHIV including 1.8 million children. The majority of this number lives in low and middleincomecountries. In the same year, 1.1 million people died of AIDS-related illnesses.Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has been shown to delay the progression of AIDS, resulting in agreater and more sustained virologic and immunologic response and improve survival. Thestudy was a descriptive cross-sectional study, involving HIV patients on ART attendingComboni Hospital Kyamuhunga from 12st to 30th June 2017. The study aimed atunderstanding factors associated with poor adherence to ART among HIV-positive patientsattending Comboni Hospital Kyamuhunga. Out of the 57 clients, 41(71.9%) had goodadherence, and 16(28.10%) had poor adherence to Antiretroviral therapy. Forgettingaccounted for (27)47% of the poor adherence, travel problems accounted for (14)25%, drugstock-outs (7)12%, and stigma, disclosure or privacy issues accounted for (9)16%. Despiteresults showing that most patients had good adherence, a significant number still had pooradherence to Antiretroviral therapy, the most common contributor to poor adherence beingforgetting their doses and travel problems. There is a need to strengthen continuousmonitoring of both adherence and correlating it with the clinical outcomes of the clients.This will create an interactive feedback mechanism that could lead to optimal clinical statesand improved quality of life of clients.