Mapping Pathways is a multi-national project to develop and nurture a research-driven, community-led global understanding of the emerging evidence base around the adoption of antiretroviral-based prevention strategies to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The evidence base is more than results from clinical trials - it must include stakeholder and community perspectives as well.

05 January 2012

Measuring quality of life concerns for people living with HIV

via Aidsmap, by Michael Carter

Fears about transmitting HIV to others, worries about the future, self-esteem problems, difficulty sleeping and treatment issues are now important quality of life concerns for people living with HIV that are not measured by existing resources, according to a report on a new quality of life measurement tool published in the online edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.

The tool – called PROQOL-HIV (Patient Report Outcomes Quality of Life – HIV) - was developed with the participation of 152 HIV-positive patients in nine countries on five continents.

“PROQOL-HIV is a novel multidimensional HIV-specific HRQL [health-related quality of life] instrument that strives to be sensitive to socio-cultural context, disease stage and treatment in the HAART [highly active antiretroviral therapy] era,” write the authors. “Important new HRQL issues were uncovered from the culturally diverse experiences of PLWHA [people living with HIV/AIDS] in previously under-represented populations.”

Effective antiretroviral therapy has transformed the prognosis of many HIV-positive patients. However, people living with HIV still experience considerable changes in their health-related quality of life. Tools to measure such outcomes were developed in the era before potent HIV treatment became available. Moreover, they did not take account of the geographic, ethnic and cultural diversity of the epidemic.

Therefore an international team of investigators set out to develop a new instrument that was sensitive to the impact of HIV therapy, different diseases stages and applicable across settings. It derived from in-depth interviews conducted with patients living with HIV in 2007 and 2008. The patients were recruited in high-, middle- and low-income countries.
The interviews identified eleven broad areas of concern.

Read the rest.


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