THE EFFECT OF PATIENT EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM ON MEDICINE ADHERENCE IN AIDS PATIENTS AT HANG CHAT HOSPITAL, LAMPANG PROVINCE, THAILAND THAILAND

Abstract

Background: Poor adherence of medication in people living with AIDS causes complications and drug resistance and leads to increased workload of health care personnel and healthcare costs.

Aims: This quasi-experimental study aimed to determine the effect of the Patient Empowerment Program on the adherence of medication and reported complications and to identify key success factors of patients’ participation in the empowerment program.

Methods: Participants were 30 people living with AIDS who did not adhere to anti retroviral medicine. The empowerment program consisted of 4 main steps and 12 sub-steps. Research instruments were the patient empowerment program, patients self-recorded form, nurse recorded medication adherence form and medical diagnosis or clinical examination results form. Data were analyzed by frequency and percentage.

Results: After the completion of Patient Participation Program, the results revealed that 1) The patients adherence to medication rate is 100 percent. 2) Clinical results showed a decrease in the number of patients with complications. 3) Key success factors of patients’ participation in the empowerment program included healthcare personnel, relationship building activities and patient characteristics.

Conclusion and Recommendations: The Patient Participation Program can improve the adherence of medication rate and leads to decreasing complications among AIDS patients. Further research is needed to simplify the program to address time constraint and to apply the patient empowerment program for other patients with chronic diseases.