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Validation of the World Health Organization quality of life instrument in patients with HIV infection

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Abstract

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.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC

    C.-T. Fang, M.-Y. Chen & J.-D. Wang

  2. School of Nursing, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC

    P.-C. Hsiung

  3. National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC

    C.-F. Yu

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  5. J.-D. Wang
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Fang, CT., Hsiung, PC., Yu, CF. et al. Validation of the World Health Organization quality of life instrument in patients with HIV infection. Qual Life Res 11, 753–762 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1020870402019

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