Table 3 Facilitators to retention in care for people living with HIV
From: Barriers and facilitators to patient retention in HIV care
Facilitator | Selected patient quotes | Total patients | Retained | Not retained |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Positive Relationships with Clinic Staff Including Provider | “When Dr. [Doctor’s Name] speaks, I take it to heart because I know he is really concerned about me. I don’t know about every other doctor. I can only tell you about Dr. [Doctor’s Name]. I know he’s concerned and I know his concerns are valid so when he suggests or says, okay, [Name], I always try to do it.” -R Male | High | High | High |
2. Social Support | “Sometimes I’m not able to go to the food bank, but I’ll call my children. I’ve called my two daughters or my son, and somebody will drop something off. They say, ma, we don’t want you to be there and not have nothing to eat. We know it’s important that you’ve got to take your medicines. So sometimes when I can’t make it to the food bank, they look out for me and bring me something over to the house.” -R Female | High | High | High |
3. Patient-friendly Clinic Services | “Because they give you transportation back and forth… So they make sure I have that when I come. So there’s really no excuse.” -R Female | High | High | High |
“They usually call me the day before or a couple days before and I usually put it in my phone on my calendar.” -NR Male | ||||
“So it’s just convenient that everything is in one place, I can go to the doctors, I can get my medicine, I can go to my groups, and I can do this all in one, between the two buildings.” -NR Female | ||||
4. Patient Initiated Reminder Strategies | I: “What things help you making your appointments?” | Low | Low | Medium |
R: “The alarm on my phone. It’s aggravating. I’ll turn it off, it’ll turn back on… Yeah. I fixed it that way. I got five alarms and I’ll set them all 10 min apart.” -R Male | ||||
5. Flexible Schedule | “Basically just me. I just will go. I mean I try to schedule where I don’t have nothing to do that week. When nothing else is coming up and if I have an appointment, it will just be my appointment that I have to go to that week without anything else bothering me. Clearing it out, yeah.” -R Female | Low | Low | Low |