Health-related quality of life and its association with sociodemographic, economic, health status and lifestyles among HIV-positive patients in northern Malaysia

ABSTRACT

Sociodemographic status and medical problems were widely reported as the major factors in people living with HIV (PLHIV) with lower health-related quality of life (HRQoL). However, lifestyles and cultural changes are rarely studied. A multicentred cross-sectional study was conducted among 137 virally suppressed PLHIV on antiretroviral therapy (ART) in northern Malaysia by face-to-face interviews and World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL)-BREF questionnaire. It was to explore their health and socioeconomic status, lifestyles, and associations with different HRQoL domains. The result of multiple linear regression showed that smoking was a predominant risk factor of lower physical (beta coefficient (β): −5.82, 95% confidence interval (CI): −9.97 to −1.66; p = 0.006), social (β: −8.76, 95% CI: −15.12 to −2.40; p = 0.007), and environmental domain scores (β: −10.25, 95% CI: −15.21 to −5.30; p < 0.001). Poor physical health also associated with unemployment (p < 0.001) and adverse drug reaction (p = 0.015). Ethnicity was a significant factor of psychological (p = 0.007) and environment domain score (p = 0.009). HRQoL of PLHIV is strongly associated with their lifestyles and societal class. Mandatory lifestyle screening, behavioural interventions and re-employment assistance should be implemented on all PLHIV.

KEYWORDS:

• Health-related quality of life (HRQoL)
• HIV
• smoking
• Malaysia

Acknowledgements

We wish to express our sincere thanks to all the volunteered patients, infectious disease physicians, nurses, and pharmacists of Hospital Sultanah Bahiyah and Hospital Kulim. We would also like to thank the Director-General of Health Malaysia for his permission to publish this article.

Compliance with ethical standards

Ethical approval was granted from MREC, Ministry of Health Malaysia (NMRR-18-445-40064) and JEPeM, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM/JEPeM/20030178), which complies with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Consent to publish

All participants signed informed consent regarding publishing their data.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).