Background:
India is the world's third leading country in terms of people living with human deficiency virus (HIV) (2.1 million) with 0.4 million deaths due to HIV-associated tuberculosis (TB). Physical and mental stress degrades the quality of life (QOL) in these patients. Studies have been done in HIV patients but very few on HIV-TB co-infected patients. Our study aims at assessing and comparing the QOL in HIV patients with and without TB.
Materials and Methods:
It was a cross-sectional study done at Antiretroviral Treatment Center of KMC, Mangalore and District Wenlock Hospital, Mangalore, over 6 months. A sample size was 104. Semi-structured questionnaire to collect clinico-demographic data, World Health Organization QOL (WHOQOL)-HIV BREF to assess the QoL, and Beck's Depression Inventory Scale (Physical health, psychological well-being, social relationship, environmental health, level of independence, and spiritual health) to identify depression were used. The Cronbach's alpha was used to measure the internal consistency for each domain of the WHOQOL-HIV instrument.
Results:
HIV-TB co-infected patients had a lower mean score in all domains as compare to only HIV patients, suggesting that HIV-TB co-infected patients had a poor QOL (
P
< 0.05). Internal consistency of each domain was good (α >0.7).
Conclusion:
To improve the QOL in HIV patients, it is important to identify the determinants of QOL and work toward its improvement.
Gender disparity in education has usually been experienced as disadvantaging girls. Although this continues to be the case in many places, the phenomenon of boys' underachievement - both in terms of participation and performance - has also become an issue in a number of countries. This book reviews the research on boys' underachievement and presents the arguments that have been put forward to understand its causes. The authors also present new studies from Australia, Jamaica, Lesotho and Samoa; and they use both the research and the evidence from the case studies to explore the causes and policy implications of this trend - the first time a truly cross-regional approach has been applied to the issue. Dr. Tony Sewell conducted the studies in the selected Commonwealth countries. This research was part of the 15th triennial Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (15CCEM, 2003) agenda and reports to 16CCEM (2006) on how open and distance learning methodologies can alleviate the problem of boys' education in circumstances where under-achievement is evident. This book will interest all education policy makers and analysts concerned to ensure gender equality in school education.
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