ArticleHIV medicine2022
Failure to return pillbox is a predictor of being lost to follow-up among people living with HIV on antiretroviral therapy in rural Tanzania.
Article in HIV medicine, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Point-of-Care Tenofovir Urine Testing for the Prediction of Treatment Failure and Drug Resistance During Initial Treatment for Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) Infection.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2023Trial
- Factors Associated With Loss to Follow-Up Among People Living With HIV in a National Tertiary Care Hospital: Protocol and Baseline Analysis of a Prospective Cohort Study.JMIR research protocols · 2026Article
- Multifactorial determinants of lost to follow-up in antiretroviral therapy: evidence from a case-control study in Mexico.AIDS research and therapy · 2026Article
- Stigma, depression and pillbox return among adults living with HIV in rural Tanzania: A prospective cohort study.HIV medicine · 2025Article
- Factors Contributing to Retention in Care and Treatment Adherence Among People Living With HIV Returning to Care in South-Eastern Tanzania: A Qualitative Study.HIV/AIDS (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2025Article
- Failure to return pillbox is a predictor of being lost to follow-up among people living with HIV on antiretroviral therapy in rural Tanzania.HIV medicine · 2022Article
- Factors Contributing to Loss to Follow-Up from HIV Care Among Men Living with HIV/AIDS in Kibaha District, Tanzania.HIV/AIDS (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2022Article
- Predictors of loss to follow up from antiretroviral therapy among adolescents with HIV/AIDS in Tanzania.PloS one · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
15 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesPill count is used to assess drug adherence in people living with HIV (PLHIV). Carrying a pillbox is associated with fear of concealment and stigma and might indicate poor adherence and predict someone who will be lost to follow-up (LTFU). We therefore assessed the association between pillbox return and being LTFU in rural Tanzania.
methodsThis is a nested study of the Kilombero and Ulanga Antiretroviral Cohort (KIULARCO). We included PLHIV aged ≥ 18 years enrolled in KIULARCO between January 2013 and March 2019 with follow-up through January 2020, who were on antiretroviral treatment (ART) for ≥ 6 months. Baseline was defined as the latest ART initiation or KIULARCO enrolment. We determined the association between time-dependent failed pillbox return updated at every visit and LTFU using Kaplan-Meier estimation and Cox models.
resultsAmong 2552 PLHIV included in the study, 1735 (68.0%) were female, 959 (40.3%) had a WHO stage III/IV and 1487 (66.4%) had a CD4 cell count < 350 cells/µL. The median age was 38.4 years [interquartile range (IQR): 31.7-46.2]. During a median follow-up of 33.1 months (IQR: 17.5-52.4), 909 (35.6%) participants were LTFU, 43 (1.7%) died and 194 (7.6%) had transferred to another clinic. The probability of being LTFU was higher among PLHIV with failed pillbox return than among those who returned their pillbox [30.0%, 95% confidence interval (CI): 26.8-33.2% vs. 19.4%, 95% CI: 17.4-21.6%, respectively, at 24 months (hazard ratio = 1.67, 95% CI: 1.46-1.90; p < 0.001)].
conclusionsFailed pillbox return was associated with a higher risk of being LTFU and could be used as a simple tool to identify PLHIV for appropriate interventions to reduce their chance of being LTFU.
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