Medication-adherence predictors among patients with tuberculosis or human immunodeficiency virus infection in Burkina Faso.

Background: Adherence to treatment remains a key issue for tuberculosis (TB) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) programs. The study objective was to identify potential determinants of medication adherence (MA) among patients with TB, HIV, or both.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, adult patients attending TB or HIV clinics were recruited in two main regions (Centre and Hauts-Bassins) of Burkina Faso from August to October 2010. Questionnaires were collected and simple and multiple step-wise linear regression models were used to identify predictors of MA.

Results: In total, 1043 patients (309 with TB, 553 with HIV, and 181 coinfected with both) participated in this study. For patients with TB, adjusted predictors of good MA were no alcohol use, ever been lost to follow-up, and awareness of disease transmission. For patients with HIV, adjusted predictors of good MA were less stigma, good knowledge about TB transmission, and awareness of disease transmission. For patients with dual infection, adjusted predictors of good MA was good attitude. Furthermore, adjusted predictors of poor MA for patients with TB or with dual infection were poor financial access to care and high number of persons sleeping in the household, respectively.

Conclusion: This study provides information on MA in patients infected with TB, HIV, and those coinfected with TB and HIV. TB and HIV programs have to consider the environment of the patient and its characteristics, including stigma, attitude, status of loss to follow-up, TB knowledge, financial access to care, alcohol use, awareness of disease transmission, and number of persons sleeping in the household. These identified factors in this study need to be taken into account for a specific patient profile and during sensitization, project planning, and research stages.