Predicting Intention to Receive COVID-19 Vaccination in People Living with HIV using an Integrated Behavior Model.

People living with HIV (PLHIV) are considered a high-risk population for developing a severe form of COVID-19. Vaccination is still one of the most important modalities in combating the disease due to the lack of an effective treatment. This multicenter study was performed from September to December 2021 with the aim to analyze the intention of PLHIV to receive the COVID-19 vaccination based on an integrated behavior model (IBM) in Indonesia. Of a total of 470 participants, 75.6% of patients were intent to be vaccinated. The model that was designed in this study explains 43.4% of the variance in intention to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in PLHIV (adjusted R2 = 0.434). Furthermore, the determinants used included instrumental attitude (ß = 0.127, p < 0.05), subjective norm (ß = 0.497, p < 0.01), and perceived behavioral control (ß = 0.116, p < 0.01). This study concluded that an IBM could predict the intention of PLHIV to receive COVID-19 vaccination.

Impact of sofosbuvir and daclastavir on health-related quality of life in patients co-infected with hepatitis C and human immunodeficiency virus.

BACKGROUND: We conducted a real-life study of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) transformation before and 12 weeks after sofosbuvir and daclatasvir therapy in HCV/HIV co-infected patients. Factors related to the significant changes of each HRQoL domain/item were also evaluated. METHODS: A prospective study was performed in the HIV integrated clinic at Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, Jakarta. HCV/HIV co-infected patients who started sofosbuvir and daclatasvir from government free DAA program in 2017-2019. WHOQoL-HIV BREF and RAND SF-36 questionnaires were recorded at baseline and post-treatment week 12. RESULTS: 145 patients with mean age of 37.8 years (SD = 4.2) were included in the analysis. Most of patients were male (89%), previous IVDU (89%), active smoker (50.4%) and non-cirrhosis (80%). SVR12 was achieved in 95.5% of patients. Sofosbuvir and daclatasvir treatments showed positive impacts on 2 domains and 2 other items of WHOQoL-HIV BREF and 2 domains and 1 item of SF-36. Predicting factors of significant increase in each domain/item were: male and normal body mass index (BMI) for level of independence (RR 4.01,95% CI 1.09-14.74 and 4.80,95% CI 1.79-12.81); higher HCV-RNA for overall perception of QoL (RR 0.42,95% CI 0.18-0.94); non-smoking status for overall perception of health (RR 0.32,95% CI 0.15-0.66); male and fibrosis stage 0-1 for general health (RR 6.21,95% CI 1.69-22.88 and 2.86,95% CI 1.16-7.00); and the use of NNRTI-based ART (RR 5.23, 95% CI 1.16-23.65). Spiritual/personal belief decline was predicted by non-smoking status (RR 0.46, 95% CI 0.23-0.95). Treatment success was not associated with any changes of HR-QoL domain/item. CONCLUSIONS: HCV/HIV co-infected patients were successfully treated with sofosbuvir and daclatasvir and experienced improvement of HRQoL 12 weeks after treatment completion.

Diagnostic performance of APRI and FIB-4 for confirming cirrhosis in Indonesian HIV/HCV co-infected patients.

BACKGROUND: After successful of antiretroviral therapy, highly effective direct acting antiviral (DAA) make HCV elimination reasonable in HIV/HCV co-infected patients. However, in achieving this target, there are still barriers to start DAA treatment, particularly in the area of liver fibrosis assessment that determine the duration of therapy. We aimed to assess the diagnostic performance of APRI and FIB-4 for diagnosing cirrhosis in HIV/HCV co-infected patients using hepatic transient elastography (TE) as gold standard. METHOD: This is a retrospective study on HIV/HCV co-infected patients who concomitantly performed hepatic TE measurement, APRI, and FIB-4 evaluation before HCV treatment initiation at a tertiary hospital in Jakarta from 2014 to 2019. Sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic accuracy of indirect biomarkers for liver stiffness measurement (LSM) ≥ 12.5 kPa was determined by receiver operator characteristics curves. RESULTS: 223 HIV/HCV co-infected patients on stable antiretroviral therapy were included, of whom 91.5% were male with mean age of 37 (SD 5) years. Only 28.7% of patients were classified as cirrhosis (F4). Using TE as gold standard (≥12.5 kPa), the low threshold of APRI (1) had specificity 95%, sensitivity 48.4%, correctly classified 81.6% of patients, with moderate performance, AUC at 0.72 (95% CI 0.63-0.80). The optimal cut-off of FIB-4 was 1.66 [specificity 92.5%, sensitivity 53.1%, AUC at 0.73 (95% CI 0.65-0.81)] and correctly classified 81.1% of the patients. CONCLUSION: APRI score ≥ 1 and FIB-4 score ≥ 1.66 had moderate performance with high specificity in diagnosing cirrhosis. These biochemical markers could be used while TE is not available.