Antiretroviral drug adherence and challenges among Nigerian Adolescents.

Despite the successes achieved with antiretroviral therapy in the management of HIV infection, achieving suboptimal adherence has remained a major challenge especially in adolescents. This study was conducted to determine the challenges to antiretroviral drug adherence among adolescents receiving care at the HIV treatment centre in Lagos. Fifty (67.6%) out of 74 adolescent eligible for the study were interviewed. Majority of the adolescents were single orphans (52.0%) and currently in primary (40.0%). While 26.0% of the adolescents achieved optimal adherence level above 95%, in the majority (74.0%) adherence was either suboptimal (34.0%) or poor (40.0%). The most common challenge reported by the adolescent hindering adherence was the long waiting time at the clinic (56.0%). Scheduling drug pick up with clinic appointment (58.0%), engaging more staff (16.0% ) and dispensing more than one month supply of drugs (12.0%) will improve adherence among adolescents. Antiretroviral drug adherence is a major challenge among adolescent in the study and is mainly due to poor drug pick up as a result of long queues at the clinic. Combined strategy of merging of drug pick up day and clinic follow-up visits, engagement of more staff and dispensing more than one month drug has been suggested by adolescent as a way to ameliorate the challenges.