Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
importance to traditions, social norms, religion, and family values.
Taking this into consideration, and the fact that HIV/AIDS is
associated with homosexuality, sex workers and injecting drug
users, HIV/AIDS patients might be at risk of being rejected by their
families, friends and colleagues, losing their jobs, economic
deprivation and social isolation (Dahdah, 2005). In fact, in Lebanon
heterosexuality was found to account for 47% of HIV/AIDS cases,
men having sex with men for 28%, injection drug use for 3%,
mother to child transmission for 6.7%, and transmission via blood
products for 15.6% (UNAIDS/WHO, 2004). All these factors play a
major role in the quality of life of AIDS patients. In Lebanon, there
is no reported information about the quality of life of patients living
with HIV/AIDS.
The aim of the study was to determine the impact of HIV/AIDS on
the quality of life of Lebanese adult patients living with the disease.
The research questions in this study were:
1. How do HIV/AIDS patients in Lebanon perceive their overall
quality of life?
2. How are demographic factors, symptoms, stigma and
discrimination, and clinical variables (HIV/AIDS status,
comorbidities, and medical treatment) associated with the quality
of life of HIV/AIDS patients in Lebanon?
3. Which quality of life domains show the strongest relationship
with overall quality of life perception?
Methodology
Design, sample and setting
The study design was a cross-sectional descriptive survey, using
self-administered questionnaires. The target population was adult
(18 years and above) Lebanese HIV/AIDS patients; the sample
included outpatients recruited from two major medical centers in
Lebanon over five months.
The questionnaire included three instruments. The first one was the
Multidimensional Quality of Life-HIV (MQOL-HIV) (Smith et al.,
1997), a 40 item scale that measures 10 different domains (mental
health, physical health, physical functioning, social functioning,
social support, cognitive functioning, financial status, partner
intimacy, sexual functioning, and medical care), on a 7-point Likert
scale. The second one was the HIV Symptom Index (Whalen et al.,
1994), that measures the frequency of twelve most common and
bothersome symptoms reported in HIV/AIDS patients (fatigue,
paresthesias, skin problems, headaches, sadness, cough, memory
loss, sleep disturbances, fevers, imbalance, diarrhea, and nausea);
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