Samuel Adeyemi BANKOLE2024-06-112024-06-112023-12M.PHhttps://repository.lcu.edu.ng/handle/123456789/518Antiretroviral therapy (ART) helps to keep women living with HIV healthy and prevents transmission and depression among other psychological factors, has been inversely linked independently with adherence to antiretroviral therapy among women living with HIV. This study aimed to examine depressive symptoms and adherence to anti-retroviral therapy among women living with HIV adherence to ART. A facility-based cross-sectional study was used with the sample size of 404 women living with HIV. An adopted questionnaire was used to collect data and the data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and statistical significance was set at p <0.05. Among WLHIV (n=404), 72% have high depressive symptoms and the level of adherence WLHIV was 94.8%. Findings from this study shows that there is a significant association between depression and ART adherence (p=0.048). Psychosocial factors of been busy, fear of side effects, fear of drug was toxic/ harmful, been depressed, specific time use of drug and unavailability to refill drug show significant association to ART adherence (p<0.05) and are main reasons participants did not adhere to their medications. The reasons for adhering to prescribed medication among the participants (n= 303) that did not miss their medication in the past 3 days were assessed. The study found that family support, availability of food, Hospital staff attitude to patients and their desire to live show significant association to ART adherence (p<0.05). A statistically significant association was found between status disclosure, depression, receiving standard ART service, alcohol consumption and smoking among WLHIV and adherence to antiretroviral therapy. Based on the findings it was proven that depression is co-morbidity with ART adherence and there should efforts that needs to be in placeto reduce the rate of depressive symptoms among women living with HIV. Keywords: ART, Adherence, Depression, WLHIV, VLS, Psychological Word Count: 289enARTAdherenceDepressionWLHIVVLSPsychologicalThesis