RESEARCH ARTICLE
Factors Related to Quality of Life in Treatment-Adherent, Successfully Treated HIV Patients in France
José Côté*, 1, Philippe Delmas*, 2, Cyrille Delpierre3, Hélène Sylvain4, Simone Delon3, Geneviève Rouleau1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2009Volume: 3
First Page: 10
Last Page: 17
Publisher ID: TONURSJ-3-10
DOI: 10.2174/1874434600903010010
PMID: 19543547
PMCID: PMC2698420
Article History:
Received Date: 17/7/2008Revision Received Date: 27/2/2009
Acceptance Date: 2/3/2009
Electronic publication date: 30/4/2009
Collection year: 2009

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http: //creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
The objectives of this study were to document the psychosocial characteristics of treatment-adherent, successfully treated HIV patients and to examine the relationships between psychosocial variables. The sample was composed of 133 persons living with HIV, with optimal adherence to antiretroviral therapy and with no detectable viral load. The psychosocial profile of the cohort showed that participants had moderate levels of stress, used a wide range of strategies to adjust to their situation and perceived their social support to be good. As well, they evaluated their quality of life (Medical Outcome Study-HIV) as moderate. Quality of life in psychological domain is largely explained by perceived stress (53%). Quality of life in physical domain is largely dependent on discomfort reported arising from HIV-associated symptoms and treatment (39%). Findings suggest that treatment-adherent, successfully treated patients with HIV are still a fragile population, and that it is essential to provide interventions that reinforce their ways of coping.