A recent study in November issue of the journal, AIDS Patient Care and STDs, found that some HIV patients have experienced an improved outlook on life after diagnosis.

The purpose of the study was to examine the quality of life for HIV individuals before and after diagnosis. Previous studies have only examined the quality of live for HIV individuals during diagnosis.

Researchers from the University of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center held two sets of interviews and examined various data of 347 HIV outpatients from three US cities during 2002-2004.

The data examined includes demographic and clinical information about patients, HIV-specific health status, symptoms, health concerns, spirituality/religion, social support, self-perception, and levels of optimism.

In the interviews, individuals were asked an outcome measure question, which allowed them to compare their current quality of life after diagnosis, with their quality of life before diagnosis. The two interview were conducted a year to 18 months apart from each other.

After the first interview, results showed that 31 percent individuals said their lives had improved, 28 percent said their lives had worsened, and the remainder stated that their lives were unchanged.

After the second interview, about one-fifth of individuals changed their response to an improved quality of live and one-sixth of individuals changed their response to a decreased quality of life.

According to Joel Tsevat, MD and principal investigator of the study as stated in University of Cincinnati’s press release, “Change in perception for the better was positively associated with religious coping, whereas change in perception for the worse was associated with factors such as the study site, sexual orientation, shorter duration of HIV, lower levels of spirituality and lower positive religious coping scores. The two main factors associated with the feeling that life has improved, relative to pre-diagnosis, were optimism and spirituality.”

These findings provide some hope for infected individuals that are dealing with difficult times. Additionally, the results suggest a new study approach involving potential interventions that can improve quality of life of infected individuals.

For more information, please see University of Cincinnati’s press release.