Novel Intervention Strategies To Increase Cost-Effectiveness Of HIV Treatment Adherence

Recently developed Adherence Improving self-Management Strategy (AIMS) produced significant effects on viral load and was cost-effective in a high-resource setting, compared with treatment as usual.

Health Psychologists and clinicians from Aberdeen and the Netherlands used a combination of self-management strategies, counselling and patients tracking their medication use with electronic pill bottles; the study found an increase in treatment success rates of almost 18% compared to patients who received regular care. Also, results showed a substantial reduction in treatment failure (over 60%) in those who received the intervention, compared to those who had received regular care.

Supporting patients’ adherence is an important objective from a patient and public health perspective, and essential for achieving the UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets.

“This is the first adherence intervention in HIV care that demonstrates clinical and cost effectiveness. The intervention can be applied in routine clinical care, and the effects have been reproduced in consecutive trials’’, Marijn de Bruin, a professor from the University of Aberdeen claimed.

It should be noted that studies on the use of mobile phone reminders to improve adherence have not been still conducted.