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©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Virol. Dec 25, 2025; 14(4): 110951
Published online Dec 25, 2025. doi: 10.5501/wjv.v14.i4.110951
Published online Dec 25, 2025. doi: 10.5501/wjv.v14.i4.110951
Adherence to antiviral treatment among people living with chronic hepatitis B: A global survey
Suzanne J Block, Department of Health, Behavior and Society Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21205, United States
Yasmin Ibrahim, Chari Cohen, Hepatitis B Foundation, Doylestown, PA 18902, United States
Author contributions: Cohen C and Ibrahim Y conceptualized, administered, and obtained funding for the original study; Block SJ and Ibrahim Y prepared the draft for this manuscript, coded and analyzed the data; Block SJ, Ibrahim Y, and Cohen C reviewed the original draft and interpreted data to provide feedback on the draft manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the final submitted version.
Institutional review board statement: The study that included collecting this data was Institutional Review Board approved by Heartland Institutional Review Board (No. 191221-270). Participation in the survey was voluntary and anonymous.
Informed consent statement: Not applicable. No individual identifying data has been collected. Survey responses were all anonymous.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The Hepatitis B Foundation receives public health program and research grants from Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, GSK plc, Gilead Sciences, Inc., Dynavax Technologies, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Vir Biotechnology, Inc., and Precision Biosciences, Inc. Chari Cohen serves on a patient advocacy advisory committee for GSK plc and Gilead Sciences, Inc., with remuneration going directly to the Hepatitis B Foundation. Ibrahim Y serves on a patient/advocacy advisory committee for F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd./Genentech, with funds being distributed to the Hepatitis B Foundation. Block S is supported by the training grant T32 CA009314 from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health. The content of this work is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: Please contact the corresponding author for data requests. Data is available upon reasonable request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Suzanne J Block, RN, BSN, MPH, Department of Health, Behavior and Society Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21205, United States. sblock8@jhmi.edu
Received: June 19, 2025
Revised: September 12, 2025
Accepted: December 2, 2025
Published online: December 25, 2025
Processing time: 189 Days and 18.4 Hours
Revised: September 12, 2025
Accepted: December 2, 2025
Published online: December 25, 2025
Processing time: 189 Days and 18.4 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: As we work towards global hepatitis B elimination, it is essential to understand how individuals’ medical and psychosocial dimensions of care influence treatment adherence. Overall findings from this study demonstrate high treatment adherence among participants living with hepatitis B. However, access to and acceptability of healthcare services, as well as an individual’s physical functioning challenges, appear to be related to low adherence. This study adds new data and can inform future treatment guidelines to better align with patients’ lived experiences and support effective programmatic strategies aimed at optimizing treatment adherence and improving health outcomes for people living with hepatitis B worldwide.