Adhesion to anti-retroviral therapy by individuals with HIV/AIDS seen at an institution in the interior of São Paulo

Inadequate adherence to highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) provokes important secondary effects in people living with aids. The objective was to identify the factors that make HAART adherence easy or difficult, according to aids patients attended at a university hospital in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. We interviewed 200 diagnosed aids patients using HAART for at least 6 months. Patients were interviewed individually, using a semi-structured design. Qualitative and quantitative analysis was used. 59% of the participants were men; average age was 38.2 years; 51% did not finish basic education; 50.5% did not perform any remunerated work. Patients had been using anti-retroviral agents for an average time of 5 years. The number of anti-retroviral pills ranged from 3 to 24. The main difficulties mentioned for adherence were: taste, size, number, smell of pills (40.0%); intense collateral effects (14.4%); psychological factors (13.7%); different times to take the pills (10.8%). Patients mentioned the following facilitators: coincidence of times to take the drugs (26.2%), no facility (16.4%), and administration associated to some habit (16.0%). The nursing group needs to reinforce supervised surveillance, educational and intervention actions.