The use of an opioid is common among people living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV; PLWH) and affects HIV outcomes harshly. The effect of the initiation of buprenorphine (BUP) on subsequent HIV viral loads was evaluated for a study. PLWH from the Johns Hopkins HIV Clinical Cohort was recognized who started BUP between 2002 and 2017. Poisson regression with robust variance was used to calculate the commonness of viral suppression (<200 copies/mL) before and after BUP beginning. Researchers matched individuals who started BUP with controls based on viral load measurement dates and prior event rate (PERR) methods to calculate the effect of BUP beginning on viral suppression. PERR methods accounted for the unmeasured confounders.
It was identified that 279 PLWH initiated BUP. PLWH was more certain to be virally suppressed (prevalence ratio [PR], 1.19; 95% CI, 1.03-1.37) after BUP initiation. After PLWH was matched, who was responsible for the initiation of BUP for controlling and accounting measured and unmeasured confounders, BUP initiation resulted in the increase of viral suppression for both on antiretroviral therapy (ART) at baseline (PERR PR, 1.08; 95% CI, 1.00-1.18) and those not on ART at baseline (PR, 1.31; 95% CI, 1.10-1.61).