Adverse drug reactions, adherence, and virologic outcomes in adult patients on dolutegravir- based antiretroviral therapy at a tertiary hospital, southeast Nigeria

Objective: To assess the adherence, adverse drug reactions (ADR), and virologic outcomes of dolutegravir-based antiretroviral therapy.Design: This was a retrospective chart review.Setting: A tertiary health facility-based study in Abakaliki, Nigeria.Participants: Five hundred and fifteen (515) adult patients on dolutegravir were selected using a Random Number Generator. Demographic and clinical data were extracted from patients’ case notes and analysed with IBM-SPSS version-25.Main outcome measures: Adherence to dolutegravir, ADRs, virologic outcome, and change in Body Mass Index (BMI) were estimated.Results: The mean age of the patients was 45.5±10.8 years; 68.2% of them were females; 97.1% of them had good self-reported adherence. The majority (82.9%) of them reported no ADRs and among those (17.1%) that did, headache (9.7%), body-itching (3.1%), and skin rash (2.7%) dominated. Most achieved viral suppression (94.4%) and did not have detectable viral particles (57.4%). There was a significant increase in the BMI of the patients with a mean weight increase of 0.9kg, a mean BMI increase of 0.3 kg/m2, and a 2.6% increase in the prevalence of overweight and obesity.Conclusions: Patients on dolutegravir reported low ADRs, good self-reported adherence, and a high viral suppression rate. However, dolutegravir is associated with weight gain. We recommend widespread use and more population-wide studies to elucidate the dolutegravir-associated weight gain.