Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-2023
Publisher
BioMed Central (BMC)
Source Publication
AIDS Research and Therapy
Source ISSN
1742-6405
Abstract
Background
Poor adherence and under-utilization of antiretroviral therapy (ART) services have been major setbacks to achieving 95-95-95 policy goals in Sub-Saharan Africa. Social support and mental health challenges may serve as barriers to accessing and adhering to ART but are under-studied in low-income countries. The purpose of this study was to examine the association of interpersonal support and depression scores with adherence to ART among persons living with HIV (PLWH) in the Volta region of Ghana.
Methods
We conducted a cross-sectional survey among 181 PLWH 18 years or older who receive care at an ART clinic between November 2021 and March 2022. The questionnaire included a 6-item simplified ART adherence scale, the 20-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), and the 12-item Interpersonal Support Evaluation List-12 (ISEL-12). We first used a chi-squared or Fisher’s exact test to assess the association between these and additional demographic variables with ART adherence status. We then built a stepwise multivariable logistic regression model to explain ART adherence.
Results
ART adherence was 34%. The threshold for depression was met by 23% of participants, but it was not significantly associated with adherence in multivariate analysis(p = 0.25). High social support was reported by 48.1%, and associated with adherence (p = 0.033, aOR = 3.45, 95% CI = 1.09–5.88). Other factors associated with adherence included in the multivariable model included not disclosing HIV status (p = 0.044, aOR = 2.17, 95% CI = 1.03–4.54) and not living in an urban area (p = 0.00037, aOR = 0.24, 95% CI = 0.11–0.52).
Conclusion
Interpersonal support, rural residence, and not disclosing HIV status were independent predictors of adherence to ART in the study area.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Nutor, Jerry John; Gyamerah, Akua O.; Alhassan, Robert Kaba; Duah, Henry Ofori; Thompson, Rachel G.A.; Wilson, Natalie; Harris, Orlando; Gutierrez, Jose; Hoffmann, Thomas J.; Getahun, Monica; and Santos, glenn-Milo, "Influence of Depression and Interpersonal Support on Adherence to Antiretroviral Therapy Among People Living With HIV" (2023). College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications. 1214.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/nursing_fac/1214
Comments
Published version. AIDS Research and Therapy, Vol. 20 (2023). DOI. This article is © The Authors. Used with permission.
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
Henry Duah was affiliated with University of Cincinnati at the time of publication.