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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Ashli Owen-Smith, MS¹, Ralph DiClemente, PhD², Gina Wingood, MPH ScD², and Delia Lang, MPH PhD². (1) Rollins School of Public Health and Center for AIDS Research, Emory University, 1518 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA 30322, 617-270-8129, aowensm@emory.edu, (2) Rollins School of Public Health and Center for AIDS Research, Emory Univeristy, 1518 Clifton Rd NE, Atlanta, GA 30322

Background: The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to treat HIV is becoming increasingly widespread. Given this popularity, it is critical to understand how HIV-positive individuals use CAM and, more specifically, whether CAM use impacts their adherence to HAART. The present study sought to identify the relationship between CAM use and HAART adherence among HIV+ women.

Methods: Data were collected from 391 HIV+ women who were enrolled in an intervention to reduce high-risk sexual behavior. At enrollment data were collected describing CAM and HAART use. Women were classified as CAM users if they reported taking herbal/natural immunity boosters/multivitamins to treat their HIV and non-adherent if they reported missing any doses of their HAART medication in the past 30 days. Adjusted logistic regressions models were used to investigate the relationship between CAM use and HAART adherence.

Results: Women using CAM, relative to non-CAM users, were 2.69 times more likely to report missing HAART doses in the last 30 days (CI: 1.28-5.64; P = .009) even after adjusting for age, level of education, religion, and household income.

Conclusions: The findings provide preliminary evidence that patients using CAM may be doing so as an alternative to traditional medicine as opposed to as a complement to such treatment regimens, a potentially problematic trend given that drug resistance can develop following inconsistent antiretroviral use. Health care providers and patients should have explicit dialogues about how to effectively integrate CAM practices into traditional treatment regimens so that the health of HIV-positive patients is not compromised.

Learning Objectives: