Published In

PLoS ONE

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-2014

Subjects

Antiretroviral therapy, HIV infections -- Treatment -- Uganda, AIDS (Disease) -- Patients -- Alcohol use

Physical Description

12 pages

Abstract

Background: Alcohol consumption among HIV-infected patients may accelerate HIV disease progression or reduce antiretroviral therapy adherence. Self-reported alcohol use is frequently under-reported due to social desirability and recall bias. The aim of this study was to compare self-reported alcohol consumption to phosphatidylethanol (PEth), a biomarker of alcohol consumption, and to estimate the correlation between multiple measures of self-reported alcohol consumption with PEth.

Methods: The Uganda AIDS Rural Treatment Outcomes (UARTO) cohort is located in southwestern Uganda and follows patients on ART to measure treatment outcomes. Patients complete standardized questionnaires quarterly including questions on demographics, health status and alcohol consumption. Baseline dried blood spots (DBS) were collected and retrieved to measure PEth. Results: One hundred fifty samples were tested, and 56 (37.3%) were PEth positive (>8 ng/mL). Of those, 51.7% did not report alcohol use in the past month. Men were more likely to under-report compared to women, OR 2.9, 95% CI51.26, 6.65) and those in the higher economic asset categories were less likely to underreport compared to those in the lowest category (OR50.41 95% CI: 0.17, 0.94). Among self-reported drinkers (n531), PEth was highly correlated with the total number of drinking days in the last 30 (Spearman R50.73, p,0.001).

Conclusions: Approximately half of HIV infected patients initiating ART and consuming alcohol under-report their use of alcohol. Given the high prevalence, clinicians should assess all patients for alcohol use with more attention to males and those in lower economic asset categories who deny alcohol use. Among those reporting current drinking, self-reported drinking days is a useful quantitative measure.

Description

This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0113152

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/18452

Publisher

PLoS ONE

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