Abstract
PURPOSE: In health communication, pictogram has a comprehensive place to aid attention, memory recall, and promote adherence. This study was conducted to assess whether pictorial intervention would help to identify and improve adverse drug reactions (ADRs) reporting in an antiretroviral therapy (ART) clinic in Northwest Ethiopia. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study on ART-naïve HIV-positive patients was conducted from July 2015 to January 2016. The patients were randomly categorized into two groups. Group A was subjected to receive pictorial medication information and a pictogram-enhanced tool to identify and report ADRs, while group B did not receive any pictogram-enhanced tool. RESULTS: A total of 207 ART-naïve HIV-positive patients who were registered for the ART treatment attending Gondar University Hospital ART clinic were included. Bivariate analysis showed that sociodemographic characteristics, such as age, sex, education, employment, and marital status were the main predictors of identifying and reporting ADRs. Males were twice more likely to identify ADRs than females. Univariate analysis revealed that patients assigned to group A showed a significant association with the ability to identify ART medications using pictograms. Patients assigned to group A were more likely to identify lamivudine (OR [95% CI] =7.536 [4.042-14.021], P≤0.001), tenofovir (OR [95% CI] =6.250 [2.855-13.682], P≤0.001), nevirapine (OR [95% CI] =5.320 [1.954-14.484], P=0.001), efavirenz (OR [95% CI] =3.929 [1.876-8.228], P≤0.001), and zidovudine (OR [95% CI] =3.570 [1.602-7.960], P=0.002) using pictograms. Patients in group A were 4.3 times more likely to identify diarrhea as an ADR using pictogram compared with group B. CONCLUSION: The use of pictorial representation resulted in only slight improvement in identification and reporting of ADRs among naïve HIV-positive patients with limited literacy in Northwest Ethiopia. This representation of ADRs merits further investigation with regard to ADR identification and promoting patients' safety, particularly for HIV-positive patients with limited educational levels.