Health-related quality of life in patients with HIV/AIDS

Background: The present study was conducted to determine the health-related quality of life in patients living with human immunodeficiency virus or suffering from acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), referred to Behavioral Diseases Consultation Center in west of Tehran, Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted using a convenience sampling method on 139 patients living with HIV or suffering from AIDS at the first half of the year 2006. The method of data collection was summarized questionnaire of World Health Organization (WHO-QOL-Brief). The main measured outcome in this study was quality of life and some related demographic and clinical variables. Results: The majority of the patients were males (88.5%) with secondary education (45.3%) and married (27.3%); the majority of them were unemployed (65.4%). The mean±SD age of the patients was 35.4±6.4 years. Gender, marital status, level of education, CD4+ count, and clinical stage of the disease, had a significant effect on the quality of life of the patients. In multivariate analysis, the most important predictor of the quality of life was clinical stage of the disease. Conclusion: The most important factors, association with decreased quality of life of the patients in this study, were being female, separated or divorced, having less CD4+ count, and being at severe stage of the disease