Assessing the Impact of COVID-19 on Retention in HIV Primary Care: A Longitudinal Multisite Analysis

Abstract

We compared retention in care outcomes between a pre-COVID-19 (Apr19-Mar20) and an early-COVID-19 (Apr20-Mar21) period to determine whether the pandemic had a significant impact on these outcomes and assessed the role of patient sociodemographics in both periods in individuals enrolled in the Data for Care Alabama project (n = 6461). Using scheduled HIV primary care provider visits, we calculated a kept-visit measure and a missed-visit measure and compared them among the pre-COVID-19 and early-COVID-19 periods. We used logistic regression models to calculated odds ratios (OR) and accompanying 95% confidence intervals (CI). Overall, individuals had lowers odds of high visit constancy [OR (95% CI): 0.85 (0.79, 0.92)] and higher odds of no-shows [OR (95% CI): 1.27 (1.19, 1.35)] during the early-COVID-19 period. Compared to white patients, Black patients were more likely to miss an appointment and transgender people versus cisgender women had lower visit constancy in the early-COVID-19 period.