Barriers and successful strategies to antiretroviral adherence among HIV-infected monolingual Spanish-speaking patients

Focus groups were conducted with HIV-infected, monolingual Spanish-speaking patients (N = 81) taking antiretrovirals in order to: (1) determine what barriers impede medication adherence; (2) determine what strategies facilitate adherence; and (3) investigate the health care provider-patient relationship and whether it impacts adherence. Both quantitative and qualitative information was gathered. Participants were prescribed an average of 11 pills per day (M = 11.4, SD = 7.0, range = 1-30). Only 32% of participants were consistently adherent when self-report of medication taking (yesterday, the day before yesterday, and last Saturday) was compared to prescribed regimen. The most frequently reported strategies were: learning more about the medications (77%), accepting the need to take them (75%) and refilling prescriptions early or on time (70%). Barriers most often reported were: feeling depressed or overwhelmed (21%), simply forgetting (19%) and sleeping through a dose (17%). From the qualitative data, four main issues emerged: patient characteristics, the health care professional-patient relationship, language and cultural barriers within the health care system, and the medication regimen. Among this Latino sample, having someone to live for was extremely important in terms of patient adherence. Language barriers were reported, and the use of translators was not always seen as a sufficient remedy. Differences between monolingual Spanish-speaking patients' and English-speaking patients' strategies and barriers are discussed.