Quality of life aspects of patients with HIV/tuberculosis co-infection

Abstract

AIM: To investigate the quality of life of patients with HIV and tuberculosis co-infection and grasping the changes imposed in order to live with both transmissible diseases simultaneously. METHODS: Qualitative-quantitative research, undertaken at a specialized outpatient clinic in Fortaleza, Brazil, between 2009 and 2010, involving 34 co-infected patients. For data collection, a quality of life scale called HAT-QoL was used, which consists of 42 items, as well as open questions to perceive the changes the disease causes. RESULTS: Most participants suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis, were male and their education level was low. Quality of life was impaired in those domains related to economic, sexual and secrecy issues. It was also evidenced that the co-infection imposes changes in daily life that underline and further harm quality of life. CONCLUSION: Experiencing co-infection, despite appropriate treatment, causes changes in the patients' lives, whose repercussions can be mitigated through health-promoting interventions.

Quality Of Life Of Patients With HIV/Tuberculosis Coinfection Experiencing Nursing Consultation

“…Economic status plays an important role in the quality of people's lives because it involves the conflict between self-support and the difficult access to employment and income, due to lack of physical conditions relevant to illness, fear of prejudice, or low education and qualification [9]. Brazilian researchers [5,8,10,12,13,14] found that better levels of quality of life of HIV patients were related to better financial conditions, as with the results of the present study. Other study [15], also showed better QoL indicators associated with increased income.…”

“…The authors observed QoL was 60% lower in patients with TB (excluding latent TB) when compared to asymptomatic TB patients [5,11]. In this study, the majority of people were in the advanced stage of the disease, which was evidenced by a low mean count of T CD4+ lymphocytes (below 350 cells/mm 3 ) and by TB symptoms.…”

“…This fact exposes the deficiencies of programs for tuberculosis and HIV control and acts as a barrier to health professionals in defining the diagnosis, evaluation and treatment, due to alterations of symptoms, clinical course and response to recommended treatment of TB in HIVpositive individuals [5]. In this context, nursing has the constant challenge of resituating its practice and its knowledge base for the health promotion reality of that population.…”

Os determinantes da qualidade de vida em pessoas com HIV: uma revisão integrativa

“…Foram analisados os 22 artigos que preencheram todos os critérios de seleção realizados . Em todos os casos, o desenho utilizado foi de natureza quantitativa e descritiva, com exceção de um deles, que propôs uma metodologia qualitativa-quantitativa 28 . Existe uma alta frequência de estudos transversais, um total de 18 artigos que representam 81,8% de todos os documentos estudados 8,9,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]29 .…”

“…Com relação ao tamanho da amostra, observou-se uma média de N=238 (DS=212), oscilando entre 34 28 e 809 11 indivíduos.…”