Journal of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (May 2017)

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

  • Banagi Yathiraj Arjun PhD Scholar,
  • Bhaskaran Unnikrishnan MD,
  • John T. Ramapuram MD,
  • Rekha Thapar MD,
  • Prasanna Mithra MD,
  • Nithin Kumar MD,
  • Deepak Madi MD,
  • Vaman Kulkarni MD,
  • Ramesh Holla MD,
  • Bhagawan Darshan MD

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/2325957415599213
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 16

Abstract

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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 CD 4 count.