Abstract
BackgroundFrance is the European country with the lowest level of confidence in vaccines. Measurement of patients’ acceptability towards a future therapeutic HIV vaccine is critically important. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate patients’ acceptability of a future therapeutic HIV vaccine in a representative cohort of French patients living with HIV-AIDS (PLWHs).MethodsThis multicentre study used quantitative and qualitative methods to assess PLWHs’ opinions and their potential acceptance of a future therapeutic HIV vaccine. Cross-sectional study on 220 HIV-1 infected outpatients, aged 18–75 years.ResultsThe participants’ characteristics were similar to those of the overall French PLWH population. Responses from the questionnaires showed high indices of acceptance: the mean score for acceptability on the Visual Analog Scale VAS was 8.4 of 10, and 92% of patients agreed to be vaccinated if a therapeutic vaccine became available. Acceptability depended on the expected characteristics of the vaccine, notably the duration of its effectiveness: 44% of participants expected it to be effective for life. This acceptance was not associated with socio-demographic, clinical (mode of contamination, duration of disease), quality of life, or illness-perception parameters. Acceptability was also strongly correlated with confidence in the treating physician.ConclusionThe PLWHs within our cohort had high indices of acceptance to a future therapeutic HIV vaccine.Trial registrationThis study was retroactively registered on ClinicalTrials.gov with ID: NCT02077101 in February 21, 2014.
Highlights
France is the European country with the lowest level of confidence in vaccines
Statistical analyses A preliminary power analysis indicated that a total of 200 participants was required to estimate a mean score Visual Analog Scale (VAS) with a margin of error less than 0.5 point assuming a standard deviation of 1 point
The distribution of acceptability scores was summarized using means, medians, standard deviations and interquartile ranges for continuous variables and counts and proportions for categorical data
Summary
Measurement of patients’ acceptability towards a future therapeutic HIV vaccine is critically important. The aim of this study was to evaluate patients’ acceptability of a future therapeutic HIV vaccine in a representative cohort of French patients living with HIV-AIDS (PLWHs). HIV-preventive and HIV-therapeutic vaccine research benefit from each other’s results and improve our understanding of the mechanisms of immune protection against HIV. Six efficacy trials that have been conducted to date, and only one, the RV144 Thai trial of ALVAC/gp120, showed a modest protective efficacy [8]. These results has provided important lessons for future strategies towards a cure for HIV [9]
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