Nurse-Led Mobile Phone Voice Call Reminder and On-Time Antiretroviral Pills Pick-Up in Nepal: A Randomized Controlled Trial

• Published in: AIDS and behavior Vol. 25; no. 6; pp. 1923 - 1934
• Main Authors: Ayer, Rakesh, Poudel, Krishna C., Kikuchi, Kimiyo, Ghimire, Mamata, Shibanuma, Akira, Jimba, Masamine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01-06-2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Antiretroviral agents; Antiretroviral drugs; Cell Phone; Cell phones; Cellular telephones; Clinical trials; Drug use; Health education; Health promotion; Health Psychology; HIV; HIV Infections - drug therapy; Human immunodeficiency virus; Humans; Infectious Diseases; Intervention; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Mobile phones; Nepal; Nurse's Role; Original Paper; Patient compliance; Prescription drugs; Public Health; Reminder Systems; Telephone communications; Telephones; Text Messaging; Nepal; Intervention; Antiretroviral; Mobile phone; Nepal
• ISSN: 1090-7165; 1573-3254
• DOI: 10.1007/s10461-020-03122-7

This study investigates the efficacy of a nurse-led mobile phone voice call reminder intervention in improving on-time antiretroviral (ARV) pills collection in Nepal. Between October and December 2017, 468 HIV-positive individuals were recruited randomly and assigned to either nurse-led mobile phone voice call reminder (intervention) group or voice call with health promotion message (control) group, 234 were allocated to each group. We assessed on-time pills pick-up at baseline and six-month follow-up and analyzed it by intention-to-treat method. In the intervention group, participants improved their on-time ARV pills pick-up from 60% (141/234) at baseline to 71% (151/234) at the six-month follow-up. After adjusting for covariates, those in the intervention group were significantly more likely to pick-up their pills on-time than those in the control group (intervention × time; adjusted odds ratio 2.02, 95% CI 1.15–3.55). Nurse-led mobile phone voice call reminder is efficacious to improve on-time ARV collection.