Prevalence of adverse drug reactions and associated factors of anti-retroviral therapy among HIV positive individuals

 

 

Abstract              Background: An estimated 33 million people are living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and around 3 million people have access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) worldwide. Aims and Objectives: To study prevalence of adverse drug reactions and associated factors of Anti-retroviral therapy among HIV positive individuals. Methodology: After approval from institutional ethical committee a cross sectional study was carried out at Anti-retroviral centre (ART) for HIV positive patients at a tertiary health care centre during the one year period in all the patients who showed the signs and symptoms of adverse drug reactions were included into the study The statistical analysis was done by Chi –square test calculated by the SPSS 19 version software. Result:  In our study we have seen that Out of the 173 HIV patients receiving ART treatment at ART centre 64 patients shown the various ADR so the prevalence of ADR was 37%. The majority of the patients were in the age group of 30-40 i.e.  39.06% followed by 40-50 were 32.81%, 50-60 were 14.06 %,20-30 were 7.81%, >60 were 6.25%. The majority of the patients were female i.e. 76.56% and Male were 23.44%. The ADRs were like Nausea, Diarrhea, Fatigue, Headache, Numbness/tingling, Rash, Anemia, Jaundice, Lipodystrophy/ Fat changes, Numbness/tingling and fat changes were significantly more common in the drug base of D4T followed by AZT and TDF respectively (χ2=426.4, df=16, p<0.0001. The most common associated risk factors were D4T based drug regimen 98.44%, followed by Duration of treatment >12 months 87.50%, Female sex- 76.56%, H/o Tobacco addiction -65.63%, H/o Alcohol addiction -60.94%, Associated with TB infection -35.94%. Conclusion: It can be concluded from our study that the ADR were more common in the D4T drug regimen and associated with risk factors like duration of treatment > 12 months, female sex, tobacco addiction, alcohol addiction, and TB infection etc.

Key Word: Anti-retroviral therapy (ART), HIV positive  D4T-Stavudine, AZT-  Zidovudine,  TDF-Tenofovir.