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Effects of a treatment adherence enhancement program on health literacy, patient-provider relationships, and adherence to HAART among low-income HIV-positive Spanish-speaking Latinos.

van Servellen G, Nyamathi A, Carpio F, Pearce D, Garcia-Teague L, Herrera G, Lombardi E

School of Nursing, UCLA, Los Angeles, California 90095-6917, USA. Gservell@sonnet.ucla.edu

The impact of an adherence enhancement program for low income HIV-infected Spanish-speaking Latinos on health literacy, patient-provider relationships, and adherence to HAART was examined. Evaluations were conducted at baseline, 6 weeks, and 6 months for participants (n = 85) randomly assigned to either the intervention group or a comparison group; 69 (81%) remained in the study for the entire 6-month duration. The intervention group scored significantly better than the comparison group on 3 of 5 measures of HIV health literacy at 6 weeks and on 2 of 5 measures, at 6 months. While there was a weak trend for the intervention group to report an increase in self-efficacy of medication adherence management, baseline to 6 weeks, no other changes were significant. Perceptions of the quality of relationship and communications with their HIV-treating physicians improved both at 6 weeks (p = 0.04) and at 6 months (p < 0.001). The comparison group showed little change baseline to 6 weeks and baseline to 6 months. While there was a trend for the pilot group to report better medication adherence, these differences were not statistically significant. Further evaluation of the impact of this adherence enhancement program is needed.

Published 14 November 2005 in AIDS Patient Care STDS, 19(11): 745-59.
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