Factors Influencing Quality of Life among People Living with HIV in Coastal South India

Arjun, B. Y., Unnikrishnan, B., Ramapuram, J. T., Thapar, R., Mithra, P., Kumar, N., Madi, D., Kulkarni, V., Holla, R., Darshan, B.

Journal of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (JIAPAC)

Published online on August 06, 2015

Abstract

Background:

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has increased life expectancy of HIV/AIDS patients, but the quality of life (QOL) still remains the same.

Methods:

In this cross-sectional study, 356 people living with HIV (PLHIV) were interviewed to assess their QOL using WHOQOL-HIV BREF questionnaire. The association between QOL with sociodemographic, clinical and cohabitation status of the participants was tested using ANOVA and Student t-test, and p value < .05 was considered statistically significant.

Results:

Physical domain of QOL showed maximum score of 16.4, while a minimum score of 12.2 was seen in social relationship domain. Participants with higher socioeconomic status (SES) and self-motivated to take ART had shown better scores across all the domains of QOL (p < .05).

Conclusion:

In our study, quality of life was high among males, younger patients, married participants, higher socioeconomic status, longer duration of ART, self-motivation to take ART, absence of opportunistic infection, and with higher CD₄ count.