Abstract
This paper examined gender differences in Quality of Life (QOL) among people living with HIV/AIDS in South India using the locally validated version of the WHO Quality of Life Instrument for HIV (WHOQOL-HIV 120). Participants (N = 109) were men and women with HIV1 Clade C infection participating in a cohort study. There was no gender difference in CD4 counts or use of antiretroviral therapy. Of the 29 facets of QOL, men reported significantly higher QOL in the following facets-positive feeling, sexual activity, financial resources and transport, while women reported significantly higher QOL on the forgiveness and blame facet. Of the six domains of QOL, men reported better quality of life in the environmental domain while women had higher scores on the spirituality/religion and personal beliefs domain. Understanding these gender differences may provide potentially useful information for tailoring interventions to enhance QOL among people infected with HIV/AIDS.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bharat, S. (1991). Research on family structure and problems: Review, implications and suggestions. In S. Bharat (Ed.), Research on families with problems in India (Vol. 1). Bombay: Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Chap. 3).
Bosworth, H. B. (2006). The importance of spirituality/religion and health-related quality of life among individuals with HIV/AIDS. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 5, S3–S4. doi:10.1111/j.1525-1497.2006.00649.x.
Casado, A. (2005). Measurement of quality of life of HIV individuals: Perspectives and future directions. The Indian Journal of Medical Research, 122(4), 282–284.
Cederfjäll, C., Langius-Eklöf, A., Lidman, K., & Wredling, R. (2001). Gender differences in perceived health-related quality of life among patients with HIV infection. AIDS Patient Care and STDs, 15(1), 31–39. doi:10.1089/108729101460083.
Chandra, P. S. (1996). Sexual control and awareness of STDs among HIV infected women. In Proceedings of the 3rd Asia Pacific Conference on Social Science and Medicine, Perth, Western Australia.
Chandra, P. S., Deepthivarma, S., Jairam, K. R., & Thomas, T. (2003). Relationship of psychological morbidity and quality of life to illness-related disclosure among HIV-infected persons. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 54, 199–203. doi:10.1016/S0022-3999(02)00567-6.
Chandra, P. S., Gandhi, C., Satishchandra, P., Kamat, A., Desai, A., Ravi, V., et al. (2006). Quality of life in HIV subtype C infection among asymptomatic subjects and its association with CD4 counts and viral loads—a study from South India. Quality of Life Research, 15(10), 1597–1605. doi:10.1007/s11136-006-9001-7.
Cotton, S., Tsevat, J., Szaflarski, M., Kudel, I., Sherman, S. N., Feinberg, J., et al. (2006). Changes in religiousness and spirituality attributed to HIV/AIDS: Are there sex and race differences? Journal of General Internal Medicine, 5, S14–S20. doi:10.1111/j.1525-1497.2006.00641.x.
Dalmida, S. G. (2006). Spirituality, mental health, physical health, and health-related quality of life among women with HIV/AIDS: Integrating spirituality into mental health care. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 27(2), 185–198. doi:10.1080/01612840500436958.
Eller, L. S., & Mahat, G. (2007). Predictors of life satisfaction in HIV-positive Nepali women. The Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, 18(5), 17–26.
Gordon, K. C., Burton, S., & Porter, L. (2004). The role of forgiveness: Predicting women in domestic violence shelters intentions to return to their partners. Journal of Family Psychology, 18, 331–338. doi:10.1037/0893-3200.18.2.331.
Institute of Medicine. (2000). Informing the future: Critical issues in health (2nd ed.). Washington DC: The National Academies Press.
Kamat, A., Ravi, V., Desai, A., Satishchandra, P., Satish, K. S., Borodowsky, I., et al. (2007). Quantitation of HIV-1 RNA levels in plasma and CSF of asymptomatic HIV-1 infected patients from South India using a TaqMan real time PCR assay. Journal of Clinical Virology, 39(1), 9–15. doi:10.1016/j.jcv.2006.12.026.
Kohli, R. M., Sane, S., Kumar, K., Paranjape, R. S., & Mehendale, S. M. (2005a). Assessment of quality of life among HIV-infected persons in Pune, India. The Indian Journal of Medical Research, 122(4), 297–304.
Kohli, R. M., Sane, S., Kumar, K., Paranjape, R. S., & Mehendale, S. M. (2005b). Modification of medical outcome study (MOS) instrument for quality of life assessment and its validation in HIV infected individuals in India. The Indian Journal of Medical Research, 122(4), 282–284.
Krishnan, S. (2005). Gender, caste, and economic inequalities and marital violence in rural South India. Health Care for Women International, 26(1), 87–99. doi:10.1080/07399330490493368.
Lamba, H., Goldmeier, D., Mackie, N. E., & Scullard, G. (2004). Antiretroviral therapy is associated with sexual dysfunction and with increased serum oestradiol levels in men. International Journal of STD and AIDS, 15(4), 234–237. doi:10.1258/095646204773557749.
Mrus, J. M., Williams, P. L., Tsevat, J., Cohn, S. E., & Wu, A. W. (2005). Gender differences in health-related quality of life in patients with HIV/AIDS. Quality of Life Research, 14(2), 479–491. doi:10.1007/s11136-004-4693-z.
Pace, J. C., & Stables, J. L. (1997). Correlates of spiritual well-being in terminally ill persons with AIDS and terminally ill persons with cancer. The Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, 8(6), 31–42. doi:10.1016/S1055-3290(97)80056-8.
Phillips, K. D., Mock, K. S., Bopp, C. M., Dudgeon, W. A., & Hand, G. A. (2006). Spiritual well-being, sleep disturbance, and mental and physical health status in HIV-infected individuals. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 27(2), 125–139. doi:10.1080/01612840500436917.
Ravindran, T. K., & Balasubramanian, P. (2004). “Yes” to abortion but “no” to sexual rights: The paradoxical reality of married women in rural Tamil Nadu, India. Reproductive Health Matters, 12(23), 88–99. doi:10.1016/S0968-8080(04)23133-0.
Robb, V. (2006). New scientific study finds forgiveness a factor in decreasing spread of AIDS. www.news.bio-medicine.org.
Sherman, D. W., Ye, X. Y., McSherry, C., Calabrese, M., Parkas, V., & Gatto, M. (2005). Spiritual well-being as a dimension of quality of life for patients with advanced cancer and AIDS and their family caregivers: Results of a longitudinal study. The American Journal of Hospice & Palliative Care, 22(5), 349–362. doi:10.1177/104990910502200508.
Sherman, D. W., Ye, X. Y., McSherry, C., Parkas, V., Calabrese, M., & Gatto, M. (2006). Quality of life of patients with advanced cancer and acquired immune deficiency syndrome and their family caregivers. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 9(4), 948–963. doi:10.1089/jpm.2006.9.948.
Shor-Posner, G., Lecusay, R., Miquez-Burbano, M. J., Quesada, J., Rodriquez, A., Ruiz, P., et al. (2000). Quality of Life measures in the Miami HIV-1 infected drug abusers cohort: Relationship to gender and disease status. Journal of Substance Abuse, 11(4), 395–404. doi:10.1016/S0899-3289(00)00035-3.
Singh, A. K., Jayaratne, S., Siefert, K., & Chess, W. A. (1995). Emotional support and social undermining as predictors of well-being. The Indian Journal of Social Work, 3, 349–359.
Smith, K. W., Avis, N. E., Mayer, K. H., & Swislow, L. (1997). Use of the MQOL-HIV with asymptomatic HIV-positive patients. Quality of Life Research, 6(6), 555–560.
Temoshok, L., & Chandra, P. S. (2000). The meaning of forgiveness in a specific situational and cultural context: Persons living with HIV/AIDS in India. In M. E. McCullough, K. I. Parga-ment & C. E. Thoresen (Eds.), Forgiveness: Theory, research, and practice (pp. 41–64). New York: Guilford Press.
Temoshok, L., & Wald, R. (2002). Forgiveness and health in persons living with HIV/AIDS. In E. L. Worthington Jr (Ed.), Handbook of forgiveness (pp. 335–348). New York: Brunner-Routledge.
Upanishads. (1995). In S. Radhakrishnan (Trans.), The principle Upanisads. New Delhi: Indus (Harper Collins Publishers).
van Servellen, G., Aguirre, M., Sarna, L., & Brecht, M. L. (2002). Differential predictors of emotional distress in HIV-infected men and women. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 24(1), 49–72.
WHOQOL HIV Group. (2003). Preliminary development of the World Health Organisation’s Quality of Life HIV instrument (WHOQOL-HIV): Analysis of pilot version. Social Science and Medicine, 57, 1259–1275. doi:10.1016/S0277-9536(02)00506-3.
WHOQOL HIV Group. (2004). WHOQOL-HIV for quality of life assessment among people living with HIV and AIDS: Results from the field test. AIDS Care, 16, 882–889. doi:10.1080/09540120412331290194.
Wig, N., Lekshmi, R., Pal, H., Ahuja, V., Mittal, C. M., & Agarwal, S. K. (2006). The impact of HIV/AIDS on the quality of life: A cross sectional study in north India. Indian Journal of Medical Sciences, 60(1), 3–12.
Wisniewski, A. B., Apel, S., Selnes, O. A., Nath, A., McArthur, J. C., & Dobs, A. S. (2005). Depressive symptoms, quality of life, and neuropsychological performance in HIV/AIDS: The impact of gender and injection drug use. Journal of Neurovirology, 11(2), 138–143. doi:10.1080/13550280590922748.
World Health Organization. (2006). Towards universal access by 2010. How WHO is working with countries to scale up HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. http://www.who.int/hiv/toronto2006/towardsuniversalaccess.pdf.
Yi, M. S., Mrus, J. M., Wade, T. J., Ho, M. L., Hornung, R. W., Cotton, S., et al. (2006). Religion, spirituality, and depressive symptoms in patients with HIV/AIDS. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 5, S21–S27. doi:10.1111/j.1525-1497.2006.00643.x.
Zimpel, R. R., & Fleck, M. P. (2007). Quality of life in HIV-positive Brazilians: Application and validation of the WHOQOL-HIV, Brazilian version. AIDS Care, 19(7), 923–930. doi:10.1080/09540120701213765.
Zorrilla, C. D., & Santiago, L. E. (1999). Women and HIV/AIDS: Barriers and new challenges. Puerto Rico Health Sciences Journal, 18(4), 397–400.
Acknowledgments
This study is supported by an NIH R01-41205 grant from NIH, USA. We acknowledge the support of all the Research Officers and Co-investigators from NIMHANS, Bangalore, India and University of Miami, Florida, USA.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chandra, P.S., Satyanarayana, V.A., Satishchandra, P. et al. Do Men and Women with HIV Differ in Their Quality of Life? A Study from South India. AIDS Behav 13, 110–117 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-008-9434-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-008-9434-9