Psycho-social impact and quality of life of people living with HIV/AIDS in South India

Abstract

This study examines psycho-social impact of HIV and quality of life of 646 HIV-infected persons from a major government sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinic in South India. In this cross-sectional study, data was collected using interview schedule and scales. Nearly 70% had problems in parenting their children after acquiring the infection. Most (88%) of the respondents reported of seeking help from their family members, relatives or close friends at the time of their illness. Among the four categories of stigma, most of them (96%) reported perceived stigma whereas actual stigma was mentioned by only 33%. All four categories of stigma were experienced on a higher proportion by females than males (p<0.05). Each type of stigma was significantly associated with each domain of quality of life of the respondents (p<0.005). Respondents who reported of actual stigma (33%) had significantly good quality of life in their physical domain (49%), psychological domain (48%) and environmental domain (44%). Multivariate analysis showed that gender and marital status had significant association with quality of life. The findings of the study underscore the need for enabling environment through "human force" to uplift their social status and to have a better quality of life.

A systematic review of HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination in India: Current understanding and future needs

“…Managing information of one's own HIV status or of a close family member is thus important as a strategy to escape from enacted stigma and its social costs (Pallikadavath et al, 2005;Steward et al, 2008). High disclosure-related concerns are supported by quantitative studies of stigma (Subramanian, Gupte, Dorairaj, Periannan & Mathai, 2009;Thomas, Rehman, Suryanarayanan, Josephine, Dilip, Dorairaj et al, 2005) with at least one study reporting significantly higher disclosure concerns among positive women (91%) than men (82%) (Subramanian et al, 2009). …”

“…By comparison, perceived or felt stigma is reported much higher. For example, more than 94% of men and women reported perceived stigma in two separate studies by Thomas et al (2005) and Subramanian et al (2009). Quality of life of those experiencing enacted stigma was found to be good in overall terms.…”

“…Between 5 and 30 per cent of HIV positive Indian respondents in Paxton's study of PLHA in Asia reported discrimination (enacted stigma): 30% experienced discrimination by health workers, 20% were refused treatment by a health worker because of HIV status, and 15% were forced to pay additional charges for medical services on account of HIV status. Similarly, in Chennai, Thomas et al (2005) reported enacted stigma among 30% of women and 20% of men, while Subramanian et al (2009) reported it among 33% of PLHA with significantly more HIVpositive women reporting perceived stigma (41%) than positive men (28%). In a Bangalore sample, 71% of positive people did not report any instance of discrimination (Steward et al, 2008).…”

A study on demographic factors affecting quality of life among HIV positive individuals attending a district anti retroviral treatment centre in Mangalore

“…8,17 Some studies showed that married individuals had better quality of life as compared to the single individuals. [18][19][20] Majority of the single individuals were males in our study. In a society like that of India, responsibility of providing for the family falls heavily on the father or the husband.…”

Medical Discrimination Affects the HIV/AIDS Epidemic Control: A Study of Self-Perceived Medical Discrimination on People Living with HIV or AIDS

“…Social support which defined as the fighting spirit against AIDS was significantly associated with healthrelated quality of life (Nunes et al 1995). It places great emphasis on the subjective feelings of infectors and can evaluate the therapeutic effect of AIDS more comprehensively than the traditional objective indicators such as mortality or CD4+ T lymphocytes (Subramanian et al 2009). It also can provide a comprehensive basis to screen for intervention measures and health resource allocation decisions (Li et al 2011).…”