Validation of the World Health Organization Quality of Life Instrument in Patients with HIV Infection

• Published in: Quality of life research 2002-12, Vol.11 (8), p.753-762
• Main Authors: Fang, C T, Hsiung, P C, Yu, C F, Chen, M Y, Wang, J D
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; AIDS; Correlations; Factor analysis; Female; Health Status; HIV; HIV infections; HIV Infections - physiopathology; HIV Infections - psychology; Human immunodeficiency virus; Humans; Infections; Male; Quality of Life; Sickness Impact Profile; Social psychology; Studies; Surveys and Questionnaires; Symptoms; Taiwan; World Health Organization
• ISSN: 0962-9343; 1573-2649
• DOI: 10.1023/A:1020870402019

We studied the reliability and validity of the World Health Organization quality of life (WHOQOL) assessment instrument in patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. WHOQOL-BREF was used to assess 136 HIV-infected outpatients. The results were analyzed and compared with data from 213 healthy persons. The Cronbach's α for internal consistency ranged from 0.74 to 0.85 across domains in HIV-infected patients. The test-retest reliability ranged from 0.64 to 0.79 across domains at average 4-week retest interval. Factor analysis identified four major factors: social, psychological, environment, and physical, consistent with the four domains of the instrument. The scores of all four domains correlated positively with self-evaluated health status and happiness (r range: 0.52-0.60 and 0.55-0.73 across domains, respectively), and correlated negatively with the number and severity of symptoms (r range: -0.40 to -0.47 and -0.41 to -0.52, respectively). The scores of physical, psychological and social domains, but not the environment domain, discriminated between healthy persons and HIV-infected patients (all p < 0.01). We conclude that the WHOQOL-BREF can be a useful quality-of-life instrument in patients with HIV infection.