| Exclusion Criteria: | 1) Persons diagnosed with HIV more than 3 months before the current diagnosis will be excluded, as will persons diagnosed with HIV less than 3 months before the current diagnosis who have seen an outpatient provider for HIV care at a regularly scheduled visit.
2) Patients with dementia, active psychosis, or other conditions that will not allow them to accurately complete the interview will be followed separately from the main cohort, provided informed consent can be obtained from their representative.
3) Since the instruments are interviewer-administered, illiterate patients will not be excluded; in that circumstance, the research staff will read the informed consent documents to the potential participant.
4) Patients who speak neither English nor Spanish will be excluded, since the informed consent and survey instruments will be available in only those languages. Pregnant women will not be excluded, as the study poses no risk to the fetus.
5) Adherence Sub-Study. As for the Steps of HIV Care Cohort Study. In addition: Patients will be excluded if they are not willing to forego use of a pill organizer for the medication to be monitored with the computerized caps. Pill organizers for the unmonitored medications will be allowed. Patients will be excluded if they are not themselves responsible for taking their own medication, i.e., if they are institutionalized or incarcerated (though neither Thomas Street Health Center, Northwest Health Center, nor the VA HIV Clinic cares for incarcerated person).
6) Or, if a person other than the patient takes primary responsibility for ensuring medication is taken by the patient. We will also exclude patients who cannot agree to not pocket doses on a routine basis, that is, remove extra pills from the bottle for later ingestion. This behavior will likely be infrequently practiced, since almost all HAART regimens currently are once or twice daily rather than thrice daily. |