AIDS Care

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been associated with delays throughout the HIV care continuum. This study explored prospective associations between experiences of past-year IPV and two HIV care outcomes in the context of current universal test and treat guidelines using two consecutive rounds of an ongoing HIV surveillance study conducted in the Rakai region of Uganda. Longitudinal logistic regression models examined associations between IPV, use of antiretroviral therapy (ART) and viral load suppression (VS), adjusting for outcome variables at baseline. To address differences in ART retention by IPV, propensity scores were used to create inverse-probability-of-treatment-and-censoring-weighted (IPTCW) models. At baseline, of 1923 women with HIV (WWH), 34.6%, 26.5%, 13.5% reported past-year verbal, physical and sexual IPV; a lower proportion of persons who experienced physical IPV (79.4%) were VS than those who did not (84.3%; |\u2009=\u20090.01). The proportion VS at baseline also significantly differed by exposure to verbal IPV (|\u2009=\u20090.03). However, in adjusted longitudinal models, IPV was not associated with lower odds of ART use or VS at follow-up. Among WWH in the Rakai region, IPV does not appear to be a barrier to subsequent ART use or VS. However, given the prevalence of IPV in this population, interventions are needed.R01 AI114438/AI/NIAID NIH HHSUnited States/R01 DA042666/DA/NIDA NIH HHSUnited States/U2G GH000817/GH/CGH CDC HHSUnited States/R01 HD072695/HD/NICHD NIH HHSUnited States/K01 AA024068/AA/NIAAA NIH HHSUnited States/F31 AA028198/AA/NIAAA NIH HHSUnited States