Exploring the psychosocial factors that lead to poor ART adherence among HIV positive clients in Rumphi District Hospital and Bolero Rural Hospital

"The Malawi government has implemented a plan to increase adherent to antiretroviral therapy (ART) by having clients identifying guardians who reminds, facilitates and supports them in taking their ART medications regularly. The guardians and clients are required to attend the first group counselling session, where they are provided with education about ART and the importance of adherence. To measure whether this strategy was successful, HIV/AIDS treatment centres were asked to measure adhrence at each visit by self-reporting missed doses which were the validate by a physical pill count. Rumphi District Hospital and Bolero Rural Hospital ART clinics are among those treatment centres that provide HIV/AIDS related services to Malawian patients. However, no known study has assessed or compared adherence of patients attending these two facilities. Greater understanding of the factors that leads to poor ART adherence among this population is relevant and could help in development of culturally appropriate intervention to increase ART adherence outcomes for those on ART medication."--Page 1