Human immunodeficiency virus infection with multiple opportunistic infections: lessons learnt from a non-adherent patient

We report a case of advanced human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection with multiple opportunistic infections (Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, cryptosporidiosis, oesophagal candidiasis and cytomegalovirus infection). The patient was presumed to be adherent on antiretroviral therapy (ART) and was initiated on respective treatments for the opportunistic infections but continued to deteriorate. On further reviewing, he was found to be poorly adherent to ART and was advised enhanced adherence counselling after which his condition improved. We report this case to emphasize the importance of adherence to ART medications in the management of patients with HIV.

Adherence and the Moral Construction of the Self: A Narrative Analysis of Anticoagulant Medication

In this article, we examine illness narratives to illuminate the discursive work that patients undertake to construct themselves as “good” and adherent. Biographical narrative interviews were undertaken with 17 patients receiving anticoagulation for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation, from five English hospitals (May 2016–June 2017). Through pluralistic narrative analysis, we highlight the discursive tensions narrators face when sharing accounts of their medicine-taking. They undertake challenging linguistic and performative work to reconcile apparently paradoxical positions. We show how the adherent patient is co-constructed through dialogue at the intersection of discourses including authority of doctors, personal responsibility for health, scarcity of resources, and deservingness. We conclude that the notion of medication adherence places a hidden moral and discursive burden of treatment on patients which they must negotiate when invited into conversations about their medications. This discursive work reveals, constitutes, and upholds medicine-taking as a profoundly moral practice.

Severity Of Relapse And Medication Adherence In Patient Of Schizophrenia: A Study From Nepal

Introduction: Schizophrenia is a clinical syndrome of variable, but profoundly disruptive psychopathology. Though it is one of the top ten illness contributing to global burden of disease, relapse rate in schizophrenia is high. Globally relapse rate varies from 50% to 92% and are similar in developed and developing countries. There are various factors associated with relapse, common being poor adherence to treatment. The estimated rate of non-adherence in schizophrenia are 50% widely ranging from 4% to 72%. This study was aimed to find the socio-demographic status of non-adherent group, contributing factors and their severity. Material and Method: A descriptive, cross-sectional study among 95 schizophrenia relapsed patients seeking psychiatric inpatient services at Nepal Medical College Teaching Hospital, Attarkhel, Nepal from the period of Baisakh 3rd 2074 to Baisakh 4th 2075. The socio-demographic variables and clinical data of patients were recorded on proforma developed by department of Psychiatry. The severity of illness was assessed by using The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and Positive And Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Also, medication adherence was assessed using Medication Adherence Rating Scale (MARS). Results: Out of 95 relapsed patients, greater number (62.1%) were non-adherent to medication and (37.9%) were adherent to medication. Also, the symptom severity assessment showed significantly severe relapse in non-adherent patient group (43.1%) than adherent patient group (3.1%). Conclusion: Non-adherent to medication is associated with significantly severe relapse in patients of Schizophrenia. Therefore, improving adherence to medication can be achieved by focusing on the identified multitude of factors driving non-adherence.

Reliable Blood Pressure Self-measurement in the Obstetric Waiting Room

SummaryBackground: Patients often fail to adhere to clinical recommendations when using current blood pressure self-measurement (BPSM) methods and equipment. As existing BPSM equipment is not able to detect non-adherent behavior, this could result in mis-diagnosis and treatment error. To overcome this problem, we suggest introducing an alternative method for achieving reliable BPSM by measuring additional context meta-data for validating patient adherence. To facilitate this, we have developed ValidAid, a context-aware system for determining patient adherence levels during BPSM.Objectives: The aim of this study was to validate this new reliable BPSM method based on ValidAid in the clinical setting. Specifically, we wanted to evaluate ValidAid’s ability to accurately detect and model patient adherence levels during BPSM in the clinic.Methods: The validation was done by asking 41 pregnant diabetic patients scheduled for self-measuring their blood pressure (BP) in the waiting room at an obstetrics department’s outpatient clinic to perform an additional BPSM using ValidAid. We then compared the automatically measured and classified values from ValidAid with our manual observations.Results: We found that a) the pregnant diabetics did not adhere to given instructions when performing BPSM in the waiting room, and that b) the ValidAid system was able to accurately classify patient adherence to the modeled recommendations.Conclusions: A new method for ensuring reliable BPSM based on the ValidAid system was validated. Results indicate that context-aware technology is useful for accurately modeling important aspects of non-adherent patient behavior. This may be used to identify patients in need of additional training, or to design better aids to actively assist the patients during measurements. ValidAid is also applicable to other self-measurement environments including the home setting and outpatient clinics in remote or underserved areas as it is built using telemedicine technology and thus well-suited for remote monitoring and diagnosis.