The optimal goals of treatment of HIV/AIDS patients are to prolong their survival and to help them maintaining good quality of life. Because the antiretroviral therapy is time consuming, the study of quality of life among HIV/AIDS patients receiving antiretroviral therapy is necessary for the success of the treatment. This research was conducted in order to study the quality of life among AIDS patients receiving antiretroviral therapy in Region 11. It was a cross-sectional descriptive study. The target population were those HIV/AIDS receiving antiretroviral therapy in hospitals under Region 11, the Ministry of Public Health, during 20002003. The study was done between October 2003 February 2004 from total studied samples of 352 subjects through questionnaire interview. The questionnaire about general information and Medical Outcome Study 36(SF-36) were applied in the study. The percentage, arithmetic mean, median, standard deviation, minimum and maximum value and relation between sociodemographic factors and quality of life by Chi square test were used for statistical analyses. It was found that there were more female than male counterparts with median age of 34.03 years. 53.1 % were married, 49.7% completed primary school, 45.5 % of them were breadwinners of the family, and 63.1% were employees. Their median monthly income was 3,350 bahts which was hardly enough for most of them. Fifty six point two percents of them owned their houses. According to antiretroviral therapy, 54.3 % were currently taking Stavudine+Lamivudine+ Nevirapine(GPO-virR) and 8.5 % reported of having side effects. Seventy eight point seven percents had taken the drugs for 12 months or less while 76.4 % suffered from opportunistic infection. Most of them had their last CD4 counts 200 cells/ml or less with mean of 210.9 cells/ml. After taking the drugs, 77.5 % had no significant change in their body weight. The median total quality of life was 88.1 points and most of them showed good quality of life. There were statistically significant associations (p-value<0.05) between marital status and level of education with quality of life. The results of this study could serve as baseline information showing the level of quality of life of the AIDS patients receiving antiretroviral therapy and related factors. The process of quality of life evaluation and the results can be applied to the service system development and follow up of AIDS patients who received antiretroviral therapy in the future.

M.Sc จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย ปี 2546

Patients, AIDS