Evaluation of sociodemographic, clinical and behavioral characteristics of people living with the human immunodeficiency virus and its association with quality of life.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate inequalities of race/skin color and sex in relation to quality of life of people living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in a Brazilian university hospital between 2017 and 2018.

METHODS

This is a cross-sectional study conducted between 2017 and 2018 with 350 people living with HIV, applying the HIV-specific Quality of Life (QoL) scale. The groups were compared using the χ2 test and Student's t-test or Kruskal-Wallis test. To evaluate the factors associated with the nine domains of QoL, Tweedie Regression, an application of the Generalized Linear Model, was performed.

RESULTS

Of the 350 participants, 55.7% self-reported to be white and 44.3%, Black/mixed-race; with a mean age (standard deviation - SD) of 45.2 (±12.6). We verified that 46.3% reported having suffered some type of prejudice, 34.8% due to the disease, 12% due to skin color, and 11.4% due to sexual orientation. The overall mean quality of life was 78.85 (±11.61). The domain with the lowest mean was Confidentiality Concerns (M: 43.45±29.46). Among the factors associated with several domains were sex (woman), level of education, per capita income, having suffered some prejudice, or hospitalizations in the last year.

CONCLUSION

Differences in level of education, per capita income, and work status by self-reported race/skin color of the participants were evidenced, showing inequalities in the study population. Sex (woman) is the factor associated with most of the QoL domains, among them Life Satisfaction, Confidentiality Concerns, Health Concerns, Financial Concerns, Medication Concerns, Acceptance of HIV, and Sexual Function.