Factors Affecting Adherence to Anti-Viral Drugs of HIV/AIDS Infected Persons at Sangtawan Clinic, Ratchaburi Hospital

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to study the factors affecting adherence to anti-viral drugs of HIV/AIDS infected persons at Sangtawan Clinic Ratchaburi hospital.The sample size was 212 HIV/ AIDS infected persons, 99 males and 113 females, selected by a purposive sampling method. The instrument was a questionnaire developed by the author, composed of questions on personal information, regularity in taking anti-viral drugs, general knowledge about anti-viraldrugs andhealth believes about the treatmentusinganti-viraldrugs. The result was analyzedusingpercentages, means, standard deviations and the Spearman’s rank correlation coefffiificient.

The research fifindings were as follows: 1. Adherance to anti-viral drugs of HIV/ AIDS infected persons was in a good level with the mean of 89.76 and the standard deviation of 9.65. 2. Knowledge aboutusinganti-viraldrugs of HIV/AIDS infected persons satisfified the criteria. 3. Health believes of HIV/AIDS infected persons were in a good level of all parts except the obstacle awareness part which was moderate. 4. Analyzing ordinal relationship found that one independent variable which was the knowledge about anti-viral drug related to adherence to take anti-viral drugs with statistical significance (p = 0.018).

Conclusively,This studysuggests thathealth personnels should provide relevant knowledge to new HIV/AIDS infected persons, especially those who are going to take anti-viral drugs for the fifirst time in order to make awareness of the signifificance of regular drug use. And it should be stressed that the regularity is signifificance in the fifirst 1 – 3 months because it is the period that patients require for adapting the habit of taking anti-viral drugs to daily life.