Researchers question the best way to get HIV patients to take their pills

 

When a person is diagnosed with HIV or a sexually transmitted disease (STD), the first discussion that they have with their doctor is what treatment plan they need to begin. For HIV, the patient is usually given antiretroviral (ARV) drugs that they have to take every day. These drugs have been shown to add decades to the lives of HIV-positive individuals, so it's important that patients keep a strict adherence to their medication schedule.

However, It's not easy for all HIV-positive people to take their medication every day, and when this happens, part of the responsibility falls on their doctor to encourage them to make their medication a top priority. Recently, researchers from Brown University conducted an analysis of hundreds of recorded doctor’s office visits, and found that physicians and nurses often rely on lecturing and scolding patients who skip their medications, rather than listening and trying to get to the root of the problem.

"This isn’t something that doctors necessarily know how to do, just because somebody says they ought to," said study lead author M. Barton Laws. "Rather than seeing this as a slam or some kind of a negative statement about doctors’ personalities or how they treat patients, it really is in my view a question of having a set of skills."

Laws and his colleagues found that HIV-positive patients don't adhere to their medication for a number of reasons, such as a lack of money, unstable housing and substance abuse.

This current study did not evaluate if having an open discussion with patients about why they don't take their pills, rather than simply yelling at them, would be a more effective way to get individuals to take their medication. The researchers plan to determine that in future studies.