Factors associated with overdose-caused mortality of HIV-positive patients who were on methadone maintenance treatment program

Abstract

To study the factors that associated with the mortality of overdose on methadone maintenance treatment(MMT)among HIV-positive patients. A 1 : 1 matched case-control design was used to identify the relationship between factors related to demography, drug use, characteristics of treatment and the mortality of overdose. 110 HIV-positive patients who died of drug overdose from March 2004 to September 2012 were defined as cases. Controls were another 110 patients who were still alive and paired with the cases, according to the same gender, similar date of MMT initiation and from the same clinics. Multivariate conditional logistic regression analyses indicated that risk factors as sharing needles before enrolled in the MMT program(OR = 5.19, 95% CI:1.39-19.33), HIV infection because of injecting drug-use (OR = 3.08, 95% CI: 1.16-8.21), and off from the treatment before the end point of the program(OR = 2.54, 95% CI: 1.23-5.23)were associated with mortality caused by overdose. Higher adherence(OR = 0.31, 95%CI: 0.10-0.95)appeared to be associated with lower mortality when compared with the control group. In order to reduce the mortality rate, comprehensive intervention could be introduced to improve the compliance of retention on MMT among patients. Intervention efforts should be focused on those patients who shared needle/syringes.