The Medication Attribution Scale: perceived effects of antiretrovirals and quality of life.

This report describes the development and validation of an instrument to assess the attributions human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected persons who are currently taking antiretrovirals make about the effects of these medications. The specific limitations in functioning that the subjects attributed to the effects of medication were assessed. The scores on a ten-item instrument were found to have high internal consistency reliability and to be related to beliefs about the benefits and barriers to taking antiretrovirals. The attribution that the use of antiretrovirals had contributed to an increase in depressive symptoms was related to reports of having temporarily discontinued use of antiretrovirals during the preceding month. The summated score on the Medication Attribution Scale (MAS) and other subscale scores were not found to predict self-reported intentional alterations of treatment regimens. Multiple regression analyses indicated that negative attributions about the effects of medications contributed to the amount of variance in quality of life explained over and above that explained by perceived health status and level of symptomology.