Memoona Irshad, Sobia Qazi, Hassan Ali.
Education status as a determinant of adherence to treatment in HIV/AIDS patients.
Esculapio J Services Inst Med Sci Jan ;15(1):66-9.

Objective: To evaluate education status as a determinant of treatment adherence in HIV/AIDS patients. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional survey was conducted at Special/HIV clinic of Medical Unit IV, Services Hospital Lahore over six months from 01-06-2017 to 31-12-2017, using non-probability consecutive sampling. A total of 140 patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria were enrolled. Informed consent was obtained; demographic data and disease characteristics were recorded. Education status and adherence was assessed. SPSS version 20.0 for windows was used to analyse data and to evaluate treatment adherence. Results: Among the 140 patients, 94(67.1%) were males and 46(42.9%) were females. Patients who completed their college education were 22(15.7%) while 37 (26.4%) were illiterate, 43 (30.7%) and 38 (27.1%) completed their primary and secondary education. The overall adherence of patients with HIV/AIDS showed that 131 (93.6%) were adherent. Data was stratified with respect to gender, age, disease duration and level of education, Chi-square (x2) test in each stratifications demonstrated absence of statistical significance (p>0.05). Conclusion: Among these 140 patients, 131(93.6%) were adherent and only 9(6.4%) were non adherent despite the education status however there is improvement of adherence with high education Therefore key to providing best medical facility to HIV patients lies in proper guidance, counseling and to a minor extent on education status of patients.

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