TUESDAY, Nov. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Home-based antiretroviral care is as effective as facility-based care for Ugandan patients with advanced HIV infection at much lower cost to the patient, according to a study published online Nov. 24 in The Lancet.
Shabbar Jaffar, Ph.D., from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and colleagues randomly assigned HIV-infected patients with late-stage disease in Jinja, Uganda, to either home-based care (859 patients) or facility-based care (594 patients).
After excluding patients who died, withdrew from the study, or were lost to follow-up, the researchers found that similar proportions of patients in the home and facility groups had virological failure (8.19 versus 8.67 per 100 person-years; rate ratio, 1.04) or died (5.40 versus 5.51 per 100 person-years; rate ratio, 0.95). The estimated annual costs were $793 for health services and $18 for patients for home care, compared with $838 for health services and $54 for patients for facility care.
"We have shown that home-based HIV care with antiretroviral therapy is an effective strategy, which relies less on clinical staff and hospital services than does facility-based care and provides large savings for patients," Jaffar and colleagues conclude.
Abstract
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