Incidence and Determinants of Lost to Follow Up Among Patients on Antiretroviral Therapy
Abstract
Death is ofttimes ignored in lost to follow up studies yet it is a competing event in such
cases as it is informative of its probability.A couple of studies have been done on incidence
and determinants of lost to follow up however solid estimates may be found if death as a
competing event is taken into account rather than censoring. The goal of the study seeks
to nd out the incidence and determinants of lost to follow up with and without death
as a competing event. Cox proportional hazards model and Fine-Gray’s subdistribution
hazards model were employed to model the outcome of the determinants on lost to follow
up. Kaplan-Meier graph was done to describe the probability of lost to follow up in the
cox proportional hazards model while cumulative incidence function was done to describe
the incidence of lost to follow up while taking death as competing event into account.Each
variable was tested for the assumption of proportional hazards before inclusion in the
nal model using Schoenfeld residuals. 1047 patients ( 15 years) were included in the
study. The overall lost to follow up rate was 14% with 2.4 per 100-person years incidence
rate. Being male, having CD4 count of < 200 mm3 and a younger age (15-30 years) were
signi cant determinants of lost to follow up, hence there is need to give extra attention to
these groups of people in order to improve HIV care service delivery
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
The following license files are associated with this item: