Brief Report: Patients' Experiences and Opinions After Desimplification of Their Single-Tablet Regimens for the Treatment of HIV Infection: A Survey in a Multicentre Cohort.

Objectives: The aims of this study were to describe patients' experiences after single-tablet regimen (STR) desimplification and its impact on self-reported treatment adherence and quality of life.
Methods: We performed a survey among all patients from the multicenter cohort of the Spanish HIV/AIDS Network who had desimplified the STRs dolutegravir/abacavir/lamivudine (DGT/ABC/3TC) or rilpivirine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine to their separate components (DTG + generic ABC/3TC or RPV + generic TDF/FTC) between December 2016 and November 2018.
Results: Among 216 patients who fulfilled inclusion criteria, 138 (63.9%) completed the questionnaire. Most of the patients (78.3%) knew what generic drugs are, only 8.7% believed that treatment with 2 pills is less effective than treatment with an STR, and 67.4% agreed that it is reasonable to take 2 pills instead of 1 for HIV treatment to decrease costs for the health care system. After desimplification, 13.0% of the patients stated they had more secondary effects, 8.0% had forgotten one or more doses more frequently than before, and 10.9% had sometimes forgotten to take 1 pill, but not the other. A proportion of 30.4% reported not being happy to take more pills a day, and 10.1% experienced a worse quality of life after the treatment desimplification.
Conclusions: After STR desimplification, most of the patients had a fair knowledge about generic antiretrovirals, and they agreed to desimplify their STR to decrease costs. Although almost a third of the respondents were not happy to take 2 pills a day, only a minority reported worse adherence or quality of life.
Competing Interests: I.S.G. has received conference or speaker fees from ViiV, MSD, and Gilead. C.G.Y. has received conference fees from Gilead and Janssen. I.J. has received teaching fees from ViiV and advisory fees from Gilead. The remaining authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
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