Racial and socioeconomic disparities in the symptom reporting of persons living with HIV

ABSTRACT

Persons living with HIV (PLWH) today can survive decades with the disease, making the symptom experience much more relevant to their lifestyle and health outcomes. The goal of the research reported here was to assess the symptom reporting of PLWH in the Unites States (US) in the combined antiretroviral therapy (cART) age of the epidemic. We conducted an anonymous online survey of symptomatic PLWH in the US and asked participants to report the frequency and intensity of 28 frequently occurring symptoms in the past 30 days. The relationship between symptom reporting and demographic factors was investigated using the adaptive least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) method. Fatigue was the most frequently reported symptom in our study population. Those with the lowest income were more likely to report more burdensome symptoms. In comparison to other racial and ethnic groups, Black non-Hispanic participants were significantly more likely to report a lower symptom burden score for fatigue, depression, muscle aches, anxiety, difficulties with memory and concentration. There were no racial/ ethnic differences in the burden of the symptoms related to sleep or neuropathy. Findings from this study present new evidence on the symptom reporting of PLWH in the US. Neuropathy continues to be a pervasive neurological symptom with no difference noted between racial/ ethnic groups.

KEYWORDS:

• Symptoms
• HIV
• HANA conditions
• online survey
• racial disparities

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Rebecca Schnall http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2184-4045

Karolynn Siegel http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8208-5949

Sabina Hirshfield http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2649-469X

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by National Institute of Nursing Research of the National Institutes of Health under award number R01NR015737. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.