Abstract
Background Adverse effects from antiretroviral therapy (ART) have an impact on quality of life and medication adherence. There is no clear understanding of how people manage the adverse effects of ART. The individual taking medications which cause serious adverse effects may choose to stop or reduce the medications to relieve the adverse effects. Hence, this study was aimed at assessing coping strategies for adverse effects of ART among adult human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) patients. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted at HIV clinic of University of Gondar Referral Hospital (UoGRH). A total of 394 study participants were recruited by systematic random sampling. Data were collected through interviewing patients. Data were entered to Epi-Info 3.5.4 and analyzed using SPSS-20.0. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize patient's sociodemographic data and the adverse effects of their ART regimen. Binary and multivariate logistic regressions were used to investigate the potential predictors of nonadherence coping strategies. Results The majorities of study participants were females (66%) and aged between 35 and 44 years (38.1%). The major adverse effects reported by the participants were headache (48.2%) followed by fatigability (18%) and loss of appetite (17.5%). Coping strategies used by HIV patients for adverse effect of ART were positive emotion coping strategy (91.1%), social support seeking (76.6%), taking other medications (76.6%), information seeking (48.7%), and nonadherence (35.5%). Younger age (AOR = 29.54, 95% CI = 2.49–35.25, p = 0.007), low level of education (AOR = 5.70, 95% CI = 2.16-15.05, p < 0.001), and living far from the health institution (AOR = 2.68, 95% CI = 1.29–5.57, p = 0.008) were associated with nonadherence coping strategy to relieve the adverse effects of ART. Conclusion The present study revealed that positive emotion coping was the most commonly used strategy. Age, level of education, and distance from health institution were the predictors of nonadherence coping strategy.
Highlights
Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are any noxious, unintended, and undesired effect of a drug, which occurs at doses used in humans for prophylaxis, diagnosis, or therapy, or for the modification of physiological functions [1, 2], while symptoms are subjective complaint that is reported by patients due to some disease state or medications
The present study showed that positive emotions, social support seeking, taking other medicines to treat antiretroviral therapy (ART) adverse effect, information seeking, nonadherence, and holy water were used by 91.1%, 76.6%, 76.6%, 48.7%, 35.5%, and 45.9% of study participants, respectively, as coping strategies for adverse effects of ART (Table 6)
Economical, and other factors through the use of multivariate logistic regression analysis, this study showed that only age, educational status, occupation, and distance were found significantly associated with nonadherence coping strategy for adverse effect of ART (p ≤ 0.05)
Summary
Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are any noxious, unintended, and undesired effect of a drug, which occurs at doses used in humans for prophylaxis, diagnosis, or therapy, or for the modification of physiological functions [1, 2], while symptoms are subjective complaint that is reported by patients due to some disease state or medications. One of the major challenges for patient being nonadherent to their ART is the incidence of ADRs. The main coping strategies for adverse effect of ART include nonadherence, social support seeking, using positive emotion, information seeking, and taking other medications [4, 7,8,9,10,11,12]. Coping strategies used by HIV patients for adverse effect of ART were positive emotion coping strategy (91.1%), social support seeking (76.6%), taking other medications (76.6%), information seeking (48.7%), and nonadherence (35.5%). Younger age (AOR = 29.54, 95% CI = 2.49–35.25, p = 0.007), low level of education (AOR = 5.70, 95% CI = 2.16-15.05, p < 0.001), and living far from the health institution (AOR = 2.68, 95% CI = 1.29–5.57, p = 0.008) were associated with nonadherence coping strategy to relieve the adverse effects of ART. Level of education, and distance from health institution were the predictors of nonadherence coping strategy
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