a Comparison of Quality of Life among HIV/aIDs Patients attending government Hospitals

Abstract

The purpose of this descriptive study was to investigate the level of quality of life and its related factors as well as to conduct a comparison of quality of life among HIV infected and AIDS patients who were treated in 11 government hospitals in Thailand’s Chumphon Province. The result revealed that the samples’ quality of life in overall health domain was rated at moderate level, showing that the psychological quality of life was rated at good level, whereas the mean of quality of life in physical, social and environmental domains was also rated at moderate level. The factors which affected the HIV/AIDS patients’ quality of life, with statistical significance (p-value < 0.05), were differences in occupation, monthly income and supports provided by each Local Administrative Organization. The level of patients’ quality of life was also rated irrelatively high perhaps due to the facts that AIDS cannot be completely cured, patients are prone to opportunistic infections and need to conceal their treatment records, and such disease is not generally accepted in today’s society. In addition, the comparison of quality of life among HIV Infected and AIDS patients who were treated in Chumphon’s 11 government hospitals disclosed that the quality of life in social relationship and environmental health domains in large-sized hospitals has a greater mean than in the small-sized ones with statistical significance (p-value < 0.05). It was found that the quality of life of physical and psychological health domain in either size of the hospitals were significantly indifferent. Lastly, the result suggested that the provision of quality treatment to the HIV infected and AIDS patients together with the promotion on occupation or income will increase the quality of life of the patient.