| ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS |
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| Year : 2006 | Volume
: 60
| Issue : 1 | Page : 3-12 |
The impact of HIV/AIDS on the quality of life: A cross sectional study in north India
Naveet Wig1, Raja Lekshmi2, Hemraj Pal3, Vivek Ahuja4, Chander Mohan Mittal1, Sunil Kumar Agarwal1
1 Department of Medicine,All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
2 Department of Special Care Facility,All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
3 Department of Psychiatry,All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
4 Department of Biophysics,All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
Correspondence Address:
Naveet Wig
Department of Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi India 110029
India
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DOI: 10.4103/0019-5359.19670 PMID: 16444082
objective: To determine the impact of Human Deficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) on the quality of life (QOL) on such patients in North India. Design: A cross sectional study. Setting: Outpatient setting and wards, Department of Medicine at a premier tertiary health care center, North India. Participants: Sixty-eight consecutive HIV/AIDS patients attending Medicine out patient department and/or admitted to the wards of All India Institute of Medical Sciences were administered a structured questionnaire by the HIV nurse coordinator. QOL was evaluated using the WHOQOL-Bref (Hindi) instrument. Analysis: One way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was performed to find out significant difference between the clinical categories and socio-demographic variables on QOL domains. Results: The overall QOL mean score on a scale of 0-100 was found to be 25.8. Similarly, on the scale of 0-100 the mean scores in the four domains of QOL in descending order were social (80.9); psychological (27.5); physical (17.7) and environmental domain (11.65). There was a significant difference of quality of life in the physical domain between asymptomatic patients (14.6) and patients with AIDS (10.43) defining illnesses (p<0.001) and asymptomatic and early symptomatic (12) patients (p=0.014). QOL in the psychological domain was significantly poorer in early symptomatic (12.1) (p<0.05) and AIDS patients (12.4) (p<0.006) as compared to asymptomatic individuals (14.2). A significant difference in QOL scores in the psychological domain was observed with respect to the educational status (p<0.037) and income of patients (p<0.048). Significantly better QOL scores in the physical (p<0.040) and environmental domain (p<0.017) were present with respect to the occupation of the patients. Patients with family support had better QOL scores in environmental domain. Conclusions: 0 In our study, QOL is associated with education, income, occupation, family support and clinical categories of the patients.
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