| A study on the relationship between social support factors and antiretroviral medication adherence in AIDS patients was conducted as a descriptive cross – sectional design at Amnatcharoen province. Some 198 subjects enrolled in the study were AIDS patients who have received antiretroviral treatment. Data was collected by questionnaire and interview during August 15th to September 20th 2007, analyzed using one way ANOVA, Pearson’s product moment coefficient correlation, t-test, and discriminant statistics.
The result showed that most participants were males (54%) with an average age of 36.4 years, and primary school educational background. Agriculture is the most common occupation among the participants. They have been diagnosed as HIV-infected for 3 to 5 years, and received antiretroviral (ARV) therapy (d4T+3TC+NVP) for 3 to 5 years. The average CD4 count at the beginning of therapy was approximately 66 cells/ml. Currently, CD4 count is approximately 387 cells/ml. According to the questionnaire, these participants had received moderate overall social supports. Nonetheless, the adherences to treatment, evaluated by interview and pill counts, were very good (98.5%), and good (80.3%) respectively. Some factors such as marital status and public clarification were significantly correlated with ARV adherence, whereas age, income, duration of being infected and treated showed no correlation.
In conclusion, this study showed that there is a significant correlation between overall social support factors and ARV adherence (p<0.05), in particular, basic knowledge, essential information, and social affirmation (p>0.05). In contrast, some other factors, i.e. emotional support and instrumental aid were apparently not correlated with ARV adherence. |