Abstract:
In Mbagathi District Hospital’s Comprehensive Care Centre a large number of patients
are on treatment with the antiretroviral drug TDF+3TC+EFV which is known to cause
Central Nervous System Adverse Drug Reactions, but currently no detailed data exists in
Mbagathi District Hospital and in Kenya on the prevalence of such adverse effects
following the use of the antiretroviral drug Efavirenz. The documented literature that
exists is from other countries and may differ from what is experienced in the hospitals
and in Kenya due to genetic and socio demographic factors. This study was carried out
to determine the prevalence of reported CNS adverse reactions in adult patients taking
Efavirenz based regimens, the number of reported CNS ADRs, the Efavirenz based
regimen that had the most CNS ADRs, the CD4 counts in the affected patients and the
duration of treatment with Efavirenz when most of the adverse reactions occurred. The
study was cross sectional with a sample size of 420 HIV positive patients on Efavirenz
based regimens. Analysis of the results indicated that the prevalence of CNS adverse
drug reactions was 48.6%. The number of reported reactions was 8 and of these the most
reported were vertigo (23.8%), nightmares (13.6%) and drowsiness (9.5%). The
Efavirenz based regimen that had the highest number of CNS ADRs was TDF/3TC/EFV
(190 cases), AZT/3TC/EFV (8 cases) and D4T/3TC/EFV (6 cases) whereas the CD4
count that had the highest number of reports ranged between 200-299 (54.2%), 100-199
(50.7%) > 399 (48.5%), 300-399 (46.1%) and < 100 (41.8%). The respondents who
experienced the CNS ADRs stated that they occurred within the first two weeks, were
mild, resolved and the medication use was continued. Multivariate analysis identified the
factors associated with occurrence of ADRs during treatment and they included gender,
nutritional status, concomitant medical conditions and concurrent use of other
medications. Binary logistic regression with removal at p<0.05 retained two factors in
the final analysis which were health status and concurrent use of other medications
during treatment whereby a patient with a BMI of normal (p= 0.039) was 2.02 times
more likely to experience a CNS ADR compared to one with BMI of underweight,
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whereas an overweight patient (p=0.011) was 2.48 times more likely to experience a
CNS ADR compared to an underweight patient. Similarly, a patient on other
medication(s) during treatment was 1.74 times more likely to experience a CNS ADR
compared to one not using any other medication (p=0.012). In conclusion, CNS ADRs
were found to be prevalent in adult patients taking Efavirenz based regimens in
Mbagathi District Hospital’s CCC. Clinicians should recognize high risk patients and
start therapy at the lowest effective dose in susceptible patients and also know the
patients drug-drug potential interactions