Barriers and facilitators to engagement in HIV clinical care in the Deep South: results from semi-structured patient interviews.

Delayed entry into HIV clinical care and poor retention during care has been associated with increased morbidity and mortality. To characterize the reasons for patients who eventually did enter HIV care after a delay and/or returned to care after a gap of 6 months or more, 130 semi-structured interviews about barriers to and facilitators for prompt entry into and sustained HIV clinical care were conducted in a clinic setting in the Deep South; responses were coded and analyzed quantitatively. Barriers or facilitators were positioned within superordinate categories of personal and structural barriers or facilitators and denial. Personal barriers for entry into care outweighed structural barriers, with denial being reported by 74% of the sample. Barriers to retention in care were more evenly distributed between personal and structural barriers, with denial being a barrier for 24%. Because of the high incidence of denial-based barriers, the role of this barrier and its resolution should be explored further.