Individualised motivational counselling to enhance adherence to antiretroviral therapy is not superior to didactic counselling in South African patients: findings of the CAPRISA 058 randomised controlled trial.
Concerns that standard didactic adherence counselling may be inadequate to maximise antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence led us to evaluate more intensive individualised motivational adherence counselling. We randomised 297 HIV-positive ART-naïve patients in Durban, South Africa, to receive either didactic counselling, prior to ART initiation (n = 150), or an intensive motivational adherence intervention after initiating ART (n = 147). Study arms were similar for age (mean 35.8 years), sex (43.1 % male), CD4+ cell count (median 121.5 cells/μl) and viral load (median 119,000 copies/ml). Virologic suppression at 9 months was achieved in 89.8 % of didactic and 87.9 % of motivational counselling participants (risk ratio [RR] 0.98, 95 % confidence interval [CI] 0.90-1.07, p = 0.62). 82.9 % of didactic and 79.5 % of motivational counselling participants achieved >95 % adherence by pill count at 6 months (RR 0.96, 95 % CI 0.85-1.09, p = 0.51). Participants receiving intensive motivational counselling did not achieve higher treatment adherence or virological suppression than those receiving routinely provided didactic adherence counselling. These data are reassuring that less resource intensive didactic counselling was adequate for excellent treatment outcomes in this setting.
CAPRISA, Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa, francois.vanloggerenberg@ndm.ox.ac.uk.
Francois
F
van Loggerenberg
Alison D
AD
Grant
Kogieleum
K
Naidoo
Marita
M
Murrman
Santhanalakshmi
S
Gengiah
Tanuja N
TN
Gengiah
Katherine
K
Fielding
Salim S
SS
Abdool Karim
D000328:Adult; D019380:Anti-HIV Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D018791:CD4 Lymphocyte Count; D019058:Community Networks; D055812:Community-Based Participatory Research; D037001:Directive Counseling; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D055118:Medication Adherence / Q000523:psychology*; D012944:Social Support; D013019:South Africa / Q000453:epidemiology; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D019562:Viral Load; D016903:Drug Monitoring
D019380:Anti-HIV Agents