Nurse-led Intervention Improves Adherence To ART And Is Cost-Effective

A nurse-led adherence support programme had a significant effect on viral load and was cost-effective according to Dutch ART adherence support study published recently in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. The study being conducted in the Netherlands between 2011 and 2014 has been praised as “an outstanding addition to the scientific literature on adherence.”

“This is the first randomised controlled trial of an HIV treatment adherence intervention that showed a clinically meaningful effect on viral load as well as cost-effectiveness,” note the investigators. The authors of an accompanying editorial remark that the study “paves the way for the next generation of ART adherence research.”

As AidsMap reports, investigators in the Netherlands, therefore, designed AIMS – the Adherence Improving self-Management Strategy. This nurse-led intervention was developed as long ago as 2003 and has previously been shown to be acceptable to patients and staff, to be feasible and to have an effect on viral load. But this research was limited as it took place in a single centre and had a short follow-up intervention (seven months).

Investigators now wanted to see if AIMS was effective and cost-effective in near real-world settings.