Modern methodological approach to the assessment of the individual quality of life of HIV-infected patients

Abstract

Introduction. The study of the quality of life (QOL) of HIV-infected patients in the system of personalized and specialized pharmaceutical care is a fundamentally new method that allows us to study the multidimensional picture of the patient's subjective experiences caused by the disease. Integral information about the physical, psychological, spiritual and social aspects of the disease makes it possible to identify individual characteristics of the patient's reaction to the disease, evaluate the effectiveness of treatment in a particular patient according to individual monitoring data and use these data to correct the treatment and prevention program. Objective: development of modern methodological approaches to assessing the individual quality of life of HIV–infected patients to determine the effectiveness of treatment of a particular patient with subsequent correction of the therapy and prevention program. Material and methods. The object of the study is HIV-infected patients undergoing treatment at the State Medical Institution “Kuzbass Center for Prevention and Control of AIDS” (n=250). The QL research methodology includes key components: selection of a research tool; collection and formation of a database; scaling of questionnaire data; statistical processing of collected information; analysis and interpretation of results. Results. A modern modified method for assessing the individual quality of life of HIV-infected patients based on the use of relationship type indices has been developed. Each indicator represents the ratio of satisfaction with a certain aspect of life to the corresponding level of psychological claims. The sum of the index values is an indicator of quality of life. Conclusion. A modified widely used method has been developed to assess the individual quality of life of HIV–infected patients in the system of specialized pharmaceutical care to determine the effectiveness of treatment of a particular patient with subsequent correction of the therapy and prevention program. It has been established that one of the main factors determining the quality of life of HIV–infected patients is a subjective assessment of health, which proves the importance of assessing quality of life as an integral indicator closely related to health.