Evaluation of a community-based ART programme after tapering home visits in rural Sierra Leone: a 24-month retrospective study.

Evaluations of community-based antiretroviral therapy (ART) programmes have demonstrated positive outcomes, but little is known about the impact of tapering community-based ART. The objective of this study was to assess 24-month HIV retention outcomes of a community-based ART programme and its tapered visit frequency in Koidu City, Sierra Leone. This retrospective, quasi-experimental study compared outcomes of 52 HIV-infected persons initiated on community-based ART against 91 HIV-infected persons receiving the standard of care from November 2009 to February 2013.

Multiple self-report measures of antiretroviral adherence correlated in Sierra Leone, but did they agree?

In resource-poor settings, studies validating multiple self-report measures of adherence are limited and do not include data from West Africa. We prospectively assessed the associations between multiple self-report measures of adherence in 58 patients receiving antiretroviral therapy. Self-report measures included a 30-day visual analog scale, 30-day qualitative single-item measure, Adult AIDS Clinical Trial Group 4-day recall, and 3-level categorical 7-day qualitative measure.