Laboratory Measures as Proxies for Primary Care Encounters: Implications for Quantifying Clinical Retention Among HIV-Infected Adults in North America.

ABSTRACT: Because of limitations in the availability of data on primary care encounters, patient retention in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) care is often estimated using laboratory measurement dates as proxies for clinical encounters, leading to possible outcome misclassification. This study included 83,041 HIV-infected adults from 14 clinical cohorts in the North American AIDS Cohort Collaboration on Research and Design (NA-ACCORD) who had ≥1 HIV primary care encounters during 2000-2010, contributing 468,816 person-years of follow-up. Encounter-based retention (REB) was defined as ≥2 encounters in a calendar year, ≥90 days apart. Laboratory-based retention (RLB) was defined similarly, using the dates of CD4-positive cell counts or HIV-1 RNA measurements. Percentage of agreement and the κ stati

SUBMITTER: Rebeiro PF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4655744 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature