Table 2.
Socio-demographic, HIV disease-related and QoL-related characteristics of study participants by general QoL (poor vs good).a
| Poor QoL | Good QoL | p-Valueb | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Men | 60.7% | 39.3% | 0.15 |
| Women | 71.4% | 28.6% | |
| Receiving ARV treatment | 58.5% | 41.5% | 0.003 |
| Not on ARV treatment | 83% | 17% | |
| Co-infection with hepatitis C | 52% | 48% | 0.04 |
| No co-infection | 68% | 32% | |
| Low education | 71% | 29% | 0.02 |
| High education | 54% | 46% | |
| Route of transmission | |||
| Heterosexual contact | 63% | 37% | 0.70 |
| IDU | 67% | 33% | |
| Other | 56% | 44% | |
| Mean age in years | 39.0 | 42.5 | 0.01 |
| Mean CD4 cell count in cells/mm3 | 355.4 | 363.8 | 0.77 |
| Time since diagnosis in years | 2 | 4 | <0.001 |
General QoL score is derived from the questionnaire as the mean of question 1 (“How would you rate your quality of life?”) and question 2 (How satisfied are you with your health?”) based on Users’ Manual for Scoring and Coding WHOQOL-HIV-BREF by WHO. It ranges from 1 to 5, with 1 corresponding to very poor QoL and 5 corresponding to very good QoL. Median of general QoL (3) was used as the cutoff point to define poor and good QoL.
p-Values are from the Chi square tests for the categorical variables (gender, education level, ARV treatment, co-infections); from Fisher’s exact test for Route of Transmission; and from two sample t-tests for the continuous variables (age, CD4 cell count, time since diagnosis), using significance level of 0.05.