Quality of life of children living in HIV/AIDS-affected families in rural areas in Yunnan, China

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore the main influencing factors of the health related quality of life (HRQL) of children living in HIV/AIDS-affected families in rural areas in Yunnan, China. The HRQL of 116 children aged 8 to 17 from HIV/AIDS-affected families and of 109 children from unaffected families was evaluated by the Chinese Version of PedsQL TM 4.0. Some potential influencing factors were investigated, such as demographic characteristics, the families' social and economic status, foster models, children's self-esteem etc. The HRQL of the children's caregivers may also have been among the influencing factors, as measured by the SF-36. Multiple regression analysis was used to explore the influence of independent variables on children's HRQL. Results showed that lower scores of children's self-esteem and caregivers' SF 36 reduced the majority of the PedsQL domains. Results showed children from HIV/AIDS-affected families reported lower scores of HRQL than those from unaffected families, especially in the psychosocial functioning, emotional functioning and school functioning domains. Children living with grandparents reported higher PedsQL scores in psychosocial health, social functioning and school functioning. Disclosure of parental HIV/AIDS status reduced children's PedsQL scores in emotional functioning and social functioning. Caregivers spending more hours accompanying the children appeared to increase the PedsQL scores in psychosocial health and school functioning. The findings indicate the child's self-esteem, the caregiver's perceived quality of life, the child's foster pattern, the average hours of company provided by the caregiver, and whether the child was informed of the parent's HIV/AIDS status are important factors influencing HRQL. Interventions aiming at these factors should be developed to improve the QL of children affected by HIV/AIDS.

Quality of life and Social Support among Children Living with HIV (CLHIV) in South India

“…Results of this study is similar to the study carried out in four townships of Longchuan County in Yunnan [6] and study of caregivers of HIV infected children in Thailand [5] This study is conducted among is limited to children who are attending to ART Plus centre of one of the Districts. Studying all children who were diagnosed to have HIV irrespective of ART treatment may give more information about their quality of life and social support.…”

“…Caregivers of children from affected families reported lower scores than those from unaffected families. This study reported that children suffered from HIV had lower score on HRQL than those from unaffected families [6].…”

Disclosure of Parental HIV Infection to Children: A Systematic Review of Global Literature

“…Some cross-sectional studies indicated that disclosure was associated with lower emotional and social functioning [58], more externalizing symptoms [33], and higher depression score [3] among children. However, other cross-sectional surveys suggested that disclosure was not significantly related to children’s psychological outcomes including externalizing problems [3, 35, 59], internalizing behaviors [3, 33, 35], anxiety [3], depression [59], adaptive functioning [29] or school grades [59].…”

The role of social support on resilience, posttraumatic growth, hopelessness, and depression among children of HIV-infected parents in mainland China

“…In China, studies suggest that children affected by HIV are subjected to high level of stigmatization (Chi, Li, Zhao, & Zhao, 2013;Lin et al, 2010). They also report higher levels of psychosocial problems such as loneliness, low self-esteem and more depressive symptoms Zhao et al, 2007Zhao et al, , 2009), sleep problems (Zhao et al, 2007), lower quality of life (Xu, Wu, Rou, Duan, & Wang, 2010), poorer school performance (Ji et al, 2007), and unmet basic needs such as food, shelter, education, and medical care (Zhao et al, 2007).…”