Attendance to care and treatment clinics (CTCs) and perceived effectiveness of Anti-retroviral Therapy (ART) for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHAs) in Newala district, Tanzania- a case of Luchinga

Abstract

Maximum adherence to ART has been recommended for PLHAs for improving treatment outcome This is through regular attendance to CTC for follow up and refill and completion of prescribed doses as per schedule This study examined attendance rate to CTC and factors influencing attendance rate by PLHAs living in Luchinga ward enrolled to CTC at the district hospital as well as perception of stakeholders on the effectiveness of the treatment This was a cross-sectional descriptive study carried out in the ward between June to July 2009 About 30 of PLHAs 41 treatment supporters and 6 key informants were involved in the study Results from this study shows that attendance rate to CTC was poor by a significant portion of PLHAs About one-third of the interviewed PLHAs admitted to have attended less than 95 of the appointment and about 37 of treatment supporters indicated similar trend with regard to their patients Main factors for poor attendance to CTC included long distance patient felt better after taking few doses of ARV fear of stigma and patient feeling tired It was also noted that some patients fail to complete prescribed doses of ARV while at home Main reason indicated by respondents for this trend was side effects of drugs patient felt better and patient feel tired With regard to effectiveness of treatment although majority of respondents indicated ART to have improved health of PLHAs however a noticeable proportion of the respondents nearly one-third indicated the treatment hasn t improved health of PLHAs Reasons for lack of improvement as perceived by respondents were mainly poor nutrition due to poverty non-adherence to drugs and heavy workloads by PLHAs Based on these findings policy implications for improving the situation have been indicated