Substance Use, Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy, and Liver Enzymes: Evidence From a Cross-Sectional Study of HIV-Infected Adult Patients Without Comorbidities on HAART in the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital.

This study applied a structural equation modeling (SEM) to evaluate the role of substance use (alcohol, smoking, and trado-medicine use) to changes in the liver enzymes (AST, ALT, and ALP) levels in HIV-infected adult patients on a highly active antiretroviral treatment (HAART) for not <1 year. The study was a cross-sectional, part of a randomized comparative trial (Ref: UPH/CEREMAD/REC/19), involving 129 (46 males and 83 females) HIV-infected adult patients. Liver enzyme levels were determined from analyzed blood samples using the Clinical Chemistry Analyser (VS10) manufactured by Vitro Scient, while the study determined substance use using a reliable (Cronbach alpha = 0.