Adherence monitoring methods to measure virological failure in people living with HIV on long-term antiretroviral therapy in Uganda

Appointment keeping and self-report within 7-day or and 30-days recall periods are non-objective measures of antiretroviral treatment (ART) adherence. We assessed incidence of virological failure (VF), predictive performance and associations of these adherence measures with VF among adults on long-term ART. Data for persons initiated on ART between April 2004 and April 2005, enrolled in a long-term ART cohort at 10-years on ART (baseline) and followed until December 2021 was analyzed. VF was defined as two consecutives viral loads ≥1000 copies/ml at least within 3-months after enhanced adherence counselling. We estimated VF incidence using Kaplan-Meier and Cox-proportional hazards regression for associations between each adherence measure (analyzed as time-dependent annual values) and VF. The predictive performance of appointment keeping and self-reporting for identifying VF was assessed using receiver operating characteristic curves and reported as area under the curve (AUC). We included 900 of 1,000 participants without VF at baseline: median age was 47 years (Interquartile range: 41–51), 60% were women and 88% were virally suppressed. ART adherence was ≥95% for all three adherence measures. Twenty-one VF cases were observed with an incidence rate of 4.37 per 1000 person-years and incidence risk of 2.4% (95% CI: 1.6%-3.7%) over the 5-years of follow-up. Only 30-day self-report measure was associated with lower risk of VF, adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) = 0.14, 95% CI:0.05–0.37). Baseline CD4 count ≥200cells/ml was associated with lower VF for all adherence measures. The 30-day self-report measure demonstrated the highest predictive performance for VF (AUC = 0.751) compared to appointment keeping (AUC = 0.674), and 7-day self-report (AUC = 0.687). The incidence of virological failure in this study cohort was low. Whilst 30- day self-report was predictive, appointment keeping and 7-day self-reported adherence measures had low predictive performance in identifying VF. Viral load monitoring remains the gold standard for adherence monitoring and confirming HIV treatment response.