Table 1. Sociodemographic and Clinical Characteristics of People Living With HIV (N = 2,112) in 24 Countries and Measures of Self-Rated Health, Positive Perspectives Study, 2019a .
| Variable | Subjective Measures of Quality of Life, % |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Optimal Overall Healthb | Optimal Mental Healthb | Optimal Sexual Healthb | Optimal Physical Healthb | Treatment Satisfaction | |
| Total | 2,112 | 55.8 | 56.1 | 46.8 | 58.1 | 69.6 |
| Gender | ||||||
| Male | 1,486 | 58.1 | 56.1 | 46.6 | 60.1 | 72.5 |
| Female | 571 | 50.1 | 54.6 | 46.4 | 51.1 | 62.9 |
| Other | 55 | 54.5 | 70.9 | 58.2 | 78.2 | 60.0 |
| Sexual orientation | ||||||
| Heterosexual | 804 | 48.5 | 47.1 | 43.2 | 48.4 | 59.0 |
| Homosexual | 1,023 | 61.8 | 61.4 | 48.1 | 65.3 | 77.8 |
| Other | 285 | 55.1 | 62.5 | 52.6 | 60.0 | 70.2 |
| Gender/sexual orientation | ||||||
| Men who have sex with men | 953 | 62.4 | 61.7 | 48.2 | 66.3 | 78.4 |
| Men who have sex with women | 420 | 50.7 | 43.8 | 44.8 | 48.8 | 60.0 |
| Women who have sex with women | 58 | 45.8 | 50.1 | 41.5 | 47.2 | 57.7 |
| Women who have sex with men | 369 | 51.7 | 56.9 | 43.1 | 48.3 | 69.0 |
| Other/indeterminate | 312 | 55.1 | 62.5 | 52.6 | 60.6 | 69.9 |
| Age, y | ||||||
| <50 | 1,464 | 57.2 | 54.1 | 50.6 | 59.7 | 67.6 |
| ≥50 | 648 | 52.8 | 60.6 | 38.3 | 54.6 | 74.1 |
| Year of HIV diagnosis | ||||||
| 2017–2019 | 488 | 51.8 | 53.1 | 46.9 | 56.4 | 64.1 |
| 2010–2016 | 805 | 58.4 | 55.7 | 51.6 | 58.6 | 70.3 |
| Before 2010 | 819 | 55.7 | 58.4 | 42.1 | 58.7 | 72.2 |
| Geographic region | ||||||
| European Union | 964 | 57.5 | 60.3 | 51.2 | 62.8 | 72.1 |
| North America | 583 | 55.6 | 50.1 | 39.5 | 52.5 | 71.2 |
| Other | 565 | 53.3 | 55.2 | 46.9 | 56.1 | 63.7 |
| Home ownership | ||||||
| Own | 653 | 55.7 | 56.7 | 44.7 | 55.4 | 72.0 |
| Rent | 825 | 57.8 | 57.3 | 47.9 | 61.3 | 70.9 |
| Other | 634 | 53.3 | 53.9 | 47.6 | 56.8 | 65.5 |
| Urbanicity | ||||||
| Metropolitan | 1,170 | 57.1 | 59.4 | 48.1 | 61.4 | 73.0 |
| Nonmetropolitan | 942 | 54.2 | 52.0 | 45.2 | 54.1 | 65.4 |
| Employment status | ||||||
| Employed | 1,258 | 61.1 | 58.5 | 51.2 | 62.2 | 72.6 |
| Unemployed/not in workforce | 854 | 48.0 | 52.6 | 40.4 | 52.1 | 65.2 |
| Race | ||||||
| Nonwhite | 816 | 51.7 | 54.2 | 44.6 | 57.6 | 63.4 |
| White | 1296 | 58.4 | 57.3 | 48.2 | 58.5 | 73.5 |
| Comorbidity, no. | ||||||
| None | 879 | 64.6 | 58.9 | 57.1 | 64.8 | 72.0 |
| 1 | 464 | 59.1 | 59.5 | 48.9 | 65.3 | 70.9 |
| ≥2 | 769 | 43.8 | 50.8 | 33.8 | 46.2 | 66.1 |
| Comorbidity, type | ||||||
| None | 879 | 64.6 | 58.9 | 57.1 | 64.8 | 72.0 |
| Cardio-hematologic only | 177 | 62.1 | 69.5 | 53.7 | 67.8 | 70.1 |
| Bone only | 23 | 52.2 | 69.6 | 47.8 | 52.2 | 56.5 |
| Neurologic only | 151 | 53.6 | 44.4 | 43.0 | 65.6 | 72.2 |
| Gastrointestinal only | 56 | 55.8 | 63.5 | 44.2 | 57.7 | 73.1 |
| Pulmonary only | 23 | 73.9 | 60.9 | 69.6 | 78.3 | 78.3 |
| Cancer only | 15 | 73.3 | 66.7 | 53.3 | 73.3 | 80.0 |
| Endocrine/renal only | 23 | 60.9 | 56.5 | 39.1 | 56.5 | 65.2 |
| Multiple | 765 | 43.8 | 50.8 | 33.8 | 46.2 | 66.1 |
| Concomitant medications | ||||||
| None | 1,209 | 63.4 | 59.1 | 53.8 | 64.6 | 71.5 |
| 1 | 419 | 55.8 | 58.0 | 47.7 | 60.1 | 67.1 |
| ≥2 | 484 | 37.0 | 46.9 | 28.7 | 40.3 | 66.9 |
| Antiretroviral therapy, switch history, no. of times | ||||||
| None | 562 | 59.6 | 64.8 | 55.2 | 66.0 | 67.6 |
| 1 | 563 | 60.4 | 51.5 | 50.8 | 60.6 | 69.4 |
| 2 | 390 | 49.7 | 45.6 | 42.8 | 46.4 | 66.7 |
| 3 | 235 | 57.4 | 57.0 | 44.3 | 61.3 | 78.7 |
| ≥4 | 362 | 48.3 | 60.5 | 33.7 | 52.8 | 70.2 |
| Antiretroviral therapy, experience c | ||||||
| Recent initiate | 241 | 61.0 | 67.6 | 54.4 | 66 | 69.7 |
| Experienced | 1,790 | 55.4 | 54.2 | 46.1 | 57.3 | 70.0 |
| Very experienced | 81 | 50.6 | 63.0 | 40.7 | 53.1 | 60.5 |
| Self-reported viral load | ||||||
| Unsuppressed/unknown | 576 | 49.0 | 47.6 | 42.5 | 46.9 | 63.7 |
| Suppressed | 1,536 | 58.4 | 59.3 | 48.4 | 62.4 | 71.8 |
Participating countries were Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and United States.
Self-rated health as good or very good was classified as optimal; ratings of very poor, poor, or neither good nor poor were classified as suboptimal health.
Recent initiates were people living with HIV (PLHIV) who had been diagnosed within the past 2 years and were on their first regimen. Very treatment experienced were people who switched antiretroviral therapy 4 or more times and stopped the penultimate regimen after less than 1 year because of issues with frequency or severity of side effects, noneffectiveness, or resistance. PLHIV not meeting the definition of very treatment experienced or recent initiates were classified as treatment experienced.