Assessment of quality of life in HIV infected Ugandans using the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and the MOS-HIV Health Survey.
Abstract
AIMS: To evaluate the use of Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and MOS-HIV in individual self-assessment health status and evaluation of predetermined HIV/AIDS health states by HIV-infected Ugandans. METHODS: HIV-infected individuals (n=159 adults (>18 years)) from the Entebbe Cohort clinic were enrolled. Each participant was interviewed face-to-face in Luganda and was asked to: 1)answer the MOS-HIV survey; 2)rate his/her own health state; 3)score three predetermined health states for HIV/AIDS (symptomatic HIV infection (SHI), minor AIDS defining illness (MIADI) and major AIDS defining illness (MAADI) and 4)reconsider their first own health evaluation. RESULTS: Participants were mostly females (76%) with mean age of 36.6 years that have with completed primary school (60%). The arithmetic mean value of respondent's own health state was 0.55[0.51-0.58; 95% CI]. The scores given to the health states were: SHI 0.63[0.60-0.65]; MIADI 0.39[0.37-0.42] and MAADI 0.15[0.13-0.17]. After ranking the health states, 66(44%) individuals revised their health status to 0.66[0.62-0.69]. Death was scored equal to zero in 99% of the cases and 26(17.3%) participants considered MADDI as bad as death. MOS-HIV had good response and acceptability. Factor analysis revealed that physical health (PH) and mental health (MH) components together accounted for 57% of the variance. Overall PH had the highest factor loadings from vitality, pain and physical subscales and for overall MH the highest factor loading was quality of life. Scale scores were lower for general health perceptions, pain and quality of life. CONCLUSIONS: Older individuals provided lower scores for self-assessment, reconsideration of health status, and for the MOS-HIV scale scores of social and role functioning, and for vitality. Age did not discriminate for the predetermined HIV/AIDS health states assessment using the VAS. It is important to assess if these differences are also found in HIV-infected individuals receiving antiretroviral therapy and whether they influence the findings of clinical trials.
Citation
International Society of Quality of Life 13th Annual Conference, Lisbon, Portugal, 10-14 October 2006, Lisbon, Portugal. Oral presentation 1673.