Reasons for abandoning antiretroviral drugs among patients admitted to a referral hospital for infectious diseases in the Amazon

Abstract

Introduction: HIV/Aids is a pandemic disease, and is a major public health problem, however, it still has no cure and the effectiveness of treatment necessarily depends on adherence to therapy for life. Objective: To record the reasons for abandoning antiretrovirals among patients admitted to a reference hospital in infectious diseases in Amazonas. Methodology: Descriptive, prospective study. Results Sixty patients with the HIV virus admitted to the hospital unit were interviewed, where the majority (70%) were aged between 19 and 40 years, of the total, 30% were in isolation, with 61.1% due to tuberculosis and 16, 6% was for COVID – 19. During the interview, 68.3% of the patients reported that, at some point, for some reason, they had already discontinued treatment and the majority (24.3%) reported that the main reason for the interruption of the sequence of taking antiretrovirals was due to reasons psychological (anxiety, depression, shame, low self-esteem). Conclusion: the prevailing guideline is not to suspend treatment even when there is medical monitoring and the patient's viral load is undetectable.