Impact of Social Support on Quality of Life among AIDS Patients in Kashmir Province of Jammu and Kashmir, India

Abstract

Since 1981, AIDS remains one of the alarming issues in public health. It kills more than 39 million people globally. In this silent killer disease, patients not only suffer physiologically and economically but psychologically too. Their psychological well-being, mental health and quality of life also affected. The cardinal objective behind the present research was to investigate the effect of social support on quality of life of AIDS patients. Further, the study strived to find the level of social support and quality of life among male and female; married and unmarried AIDS patients. This study consisted sample of 60 AIDS patients with equal number of male and female patients selected through purposive sampling technique. Quality of Life was measured by Quality of Life Scale and for assessment of Social Support among patients Enriched Social Support Inventory was applied. For statistical analysis Mean, t-Test, Pearson Correlation and One Way ANOVA was applied by using SPSS 16.0 version. The findings show that male and married AIDS patients have a better level of quality of life than female and unmarried AIDS patients; they also receive more social support than female and unmarried patients. The results also revealed that two demographical variables gender and marital status are negatively significant correlated with Social Support and Quality of Life. Concurrently Social Support was found positively significant correlated with quality of life. On the basis of the findings in the present study we may conclude that gender, marital status as well as Social support are influential variables in quality of life. All these three variables have their impact on quality of life.