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Table 1 Retention definitions and methods of calculation. B+ PMTCT program, Mozambique, 2013–2017

From: Measuring retention in care for HIV-positive pregnant women in Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) option B+ programs: the Mozambique experience

Type of retention

Definition of a patient ‘alive and retained in care’ at 12 months post-ART initiation

Failure event

‘Point’ retention

Alive and had a visit at the health facility 12 months post-ART initiation or if was known to have had a visit at a health facility any time after

Death, LTFU, and transfer-out are counted if they occurred within the first 12 months post-ART initiation

WHO

Attendance at a health facility at 12 months post-ART initiationa, or at any time up to 3 months later

Death, LTFU, and transfer-out are counted if they occurred within the first 15 months post-ART initiation.

Patients transferred out were right-censored at the date of transfer-out

MOH

Attendance at a health facility at 12 months post-ART initiationa

Death or LTFU are counted if either occurred within the first 12 months post-ART initiation

Patients transferred out are excluded from the analysis

IATT

Attendance at a health facility and on treatment at 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months post-ART initiation b

Death, LTFU, transfers-out and failure to attend either the 1-, 2-, 3-, 6-, 9-, or 12-month visit, whichever comes first

Patients are right-censored at the date of the 1st failure event.

‘Appointment adherence’ retention

Attendance at a health facility at 12-months post-ART initiation aand ≥ 75% of appointment adherence to scheduled visits

‘Appointment adherence’ was estimated using the number of visits attended divided by the number of total scheduled visits during the 12-month observation period

Not applicable

‘On-time adherence’ retention

Attendance at a health facility at 12 months post-ART initiation aand ≥ 75% of ‘on-time attendance to scheduled visits

A visit on time is defined as a visit that occurred within +/−  15 days of the date of the expected scheduled visit

‘On-time adherence’ is estimated using the number of visits attended on-time divided by the number of total scheduled visits.

Unscheduled visits occurring before the date of appointment were not counted as missed visits

Death, LTFU, transfer-out, and failure to attend a visit on-time, whichever comes first.

Patients were right-censored at the date of the 1st failure event

  1. ART antiretroviral therapy, IATT Inter-Agency Task Team, LTFU lost to follow-up, MOH Ministry of Health, PMTCT for prevention of mother-to-child transmission, WHO World Health Organization
  2. aFor these definitions, we considered a window period of +/− 15 days around the theoretical date of 12-month post-ART initiation
  3. b We allowed a +/− 15-day window period for each stage of ART follow-up. Note: We did not consider ‘appointment adherence’ retention for the survival analysis, as this definition does not contemplate a time event but rather the total number of visits completed during the observation period
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BMC Public Health

ISSN: 1471-2458

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