Enhancing Quality of Life and Medication Adherence Through Patient Education and Counseling among HIV/AIDS Patients in Resource Limited Settings – Pre and Post Interventional Pilot Trial

Aims: The present study was undertaken to examine the effect of patient education and counseling by pharmacist on quality of life and medication adherence on patients living with HIV/AIDS in rural settings.
Study Design: It is a single group (without control group) pre- post interventional pilot trial
Place and Duration of Study: Convenient samples of 54 patients of either sex, with ART medications for a minimum of 3 months and between the age group of 18 – 65 were included in the study. It was conducted by visiting the patients directly at their homes in rural setup for the period of six months.
Methodology: The recruited patients were educated and counseled individually by a trained pharmacist through previously prepared and validated Telugu version of patient information leaflet with pictograms and cartoons suitable for both illiterate and literate patients developed by pharmacist. Patient’s quality of life, level of knowledge and adherence to the medications were considered as outcome measures, After providing educational intervention and counseling, patients were followed after the minimum interval of 90 days and then the outcome parameters were evaluated. Paired‘t’ test was used to generate the results.
Results: Our study results have show that there was an significant improvement of knowledge about disease and medications. We also observed a significant improvement in Quality of life. The total mean score of quality of life at baseline was 53.28 ± 16.85 and during the follow up Visit it was 64.75± 8.84 and there was significant difference between the pre counseling data and post counseling data. Patient medication adherence was maintained at the same level of 80.09 %, 81.01% before and after providing patient education and counseling respectively
Conclusion: Patient education and counseling is an important aspect to improve quality of life of patients living with HIV/AIDS in a resource limited settings.