Experiencing antiretroviral adherence: helping healthcare staff better understand adherence to paediatric antiretrovirals

Background: Lack of adherence to antiretroviral medications is one of the key challenges for paediatric HIV care and treatment programmes. There are few hands-on opportunities for healthcare workers to gain awareness of the psychosocial and logistic challenges that caregivers face when administering daily antiretroviral therapy to children. This article describes an educational activity that allows healthcare workers to simulate this caregiver role. Methods: Paediatric formulations of several antiretroviral medications were dispensed to a convenience sample of staff at the Baylor College of Medicine-Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Clinical Center of Excellence in Mbabane, Swaziland. The amounts of the medications remaining were collected and measured one week later. Adherence rates were calculated. Following the exercise, a brief questionnaire was administered to all staff participants. Results: The 27 clinic staff involved in the exercise had varying and low adherence rates over the week during which the exercise was conducted. Leading perceived barriers to adherence included: family friends don't help me remember/tell me I shouldn't take it and forgot. Participants reported that the exercise was useful as it allowed them to better address the challenges faced by paediatric patients and caregivers. Conclusions: Promoting good adherence practices among caregivers of children on antiretrovirals is challenging but essential in the treatment of paediatric HIV. Participants in this exercise achieved poor adherence rates, but identified with many of the barriers commonly reported by caregivers. Simulations such as this have the potential to promote awareness of paediatric ARV adherence issues among healthcare staff and ultimately improve adherence support and patient outcomes.