Related factors to non-adherence to antiretroviral therapy in HIV/AIDS patients

Objective: To identify sociodemographic, clinical, and pharmacolo-gical factors associated with nonadherence to antiretroviral treatment in patients with human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome treated between 2017 and 2020 in four cities in Colombia.Method: An observational, cross-sectional, retrospective study was con-ducted of a population of patients with human immunodeficiency virus/ acquired immunodeficiency syndrome treated between 2017 and 2020. The Morisky-Green scale, the simplified medication adherence question-naire, and the simplified scale to detect adherence problems to antiretro-viral treatment were applied to determine patient adherence. A binomial multiple logistic regression was performed to evaluate the factors that best explain nonadherence.Results: A total of 9,835 patients were evaluated, of whom 74.4% were men, 71.1% were aged between 18 and 44 years, 76.0% had attended at most secondary school, 78.1% were single, and 97.6% resi-ded in an urban area. After applying three different scales to each patient, 10% of the study population were identified as nonadherent to treatment. The risk of nonadherence was significantly higher in patients who presented any drug-related problem or had an adverse reaction to antiretroviral drugs.Conclusions: The variables most strongly associated with nonadhe-Conclusiones: Los problemas relacionados con el uso de medicamen-tos, las reacciones adversas a medicamentos, los antecedentes de no adherencia al tratamiento y el consumo de sustancias psicoactivas fueron las variables que mas se asociaron con la no adherencia al tratamiento antirretroviral.