Dosing practices made mundane

Enacting HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis adherence in domestic routines

Bibliographic Data

ID2250271
AuthorsA K Smith (0000-0002-0005-9542, Centre for Social Research in Health UNSW Sydney New South Wales Australia, corresponding author), K Lancaster (0000-0002-2411-7970, Centre for Social Research in Health UNSW Sydney New South Wales Australia), Tammy Rhodes (0000-0003-2400-9838, Centre for Social Research in Health UNSW Sydney New South Wales Australia), Martin Holt (0000-0002-2586-8274, Centre for Social Research in Health UNSW Sydney New South Wales Australia)
Year2023
Volume45
Issue8
Pages1747-1764
Publication date2023-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociology of Health & Illness (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0141-9889 • E-ISSN: 1467-9566
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1467-9566.13687
PMID37309108
OpenAlexW4380422586
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited40

Maintaining routines of medication dosing requires effort amidst the variabilities of everyday life. This article offers a sociomaterial analysis of how the oral HIV prevention regimen, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), is put to use and made to work, including in situations which disrupt or complicate dosing regimes. Other than a daily pill, PrEP can be taken less frequently based on anticipated sexual activity and HIV risk, including 'on-demand' and 'periodic' dosing. Drawing on 40 interviews with PrEP users in Australia in 2022, we explore PrEP and its dosing as features of assemblages in which bodies, routines, desires, material objects and the home environment interact. Dosing emerges as a practice of coordination involving dosette boxes, blister packs, alarms, partners, pets, planning sex, routines and domestic space, and as an effect of experimentations with timing to suit life circumstances and manage side effects. Dosing is materialised in the mundane; a practice that is made to work, as well as domesticated, in its situations. Although there are no 'simple' solutions to adherence, our analysis offers practical insights into how routine, planning and experimentation come together to capacitate PrEP to work in people's lives, in sometimes unexpected ways, including through adaptations of PrEP dosing

Dosing · Family medicine · Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV · Pill · Pre-exposure prophylaxis · HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk · HIV/AIDS Research and Interventions · Medicine · Pharmacology · Psychology · Sex work and related issues