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.