Health related quality of life among people receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy at Bharatpur Hospital, Chitwan, Nepal.
Keywords:
HIV, Quality of Life, NepalAbstract
Background: Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is one of the most important outcome measures among HIV-infected patients receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Likewise, improved quality of life (QoL) is one prominent goal of patient treatment. This study was conducted to investigate the QoL of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) receiving HAART at the antiretroviral therapy (ART) center of the Bharatpur Hospital in Chitwan, Nepal.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted among 271 PLWHA receiving HAART at the ART center of Bharatpur Hospital in the Chitwan district in April, 2016. Participants were recruited purposely and interviewed with a structured questionnaire. Quality of life was assessed using the World Health Organization Quality of Life HIV- BREF (WHOQOL-HIV-BREF) standard tool. Data was entered to Epi-Info version 3.5.3 and analyzed using SPSS version 21 for windows. A bivariate analysis was fitted to identify factors associated with QoL.
Result: A total of 271 participants, with a mean age of 36.86 (SD = 9.62), were included in the study. This study found that the majority of participants had moderate general QoL, except for the spiritual domain, which contains information about personal beliefs, forgiveness and blame, and concerns about future, death, and dying. Younger patients, religious minorities, literate patients, unmarried patients, those on ART for more than three years, and those who adhered to ART were associated with good general QoL across all domains.
Conclusion: The participants’ self-reported HRQoL was generally satisfactory except for Spiritual domains. Since HIV is a chronic illness, the spiritual need of patients requires attention, including religious coping or support to find a sense of meaning/support in life, to cope with issues of guilt and shame, and to deal with the grief and bereavement associated with the disease.
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