Prevalence, burden, and correlates of physical and psychological symptoms among hiv palliative care patients in sub-saharan africa: an international multicenter study
Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 06/14/2012
Harding R et al. – This study is the first to report physical and psychological symptom burden in HIV–infected populations receiving palliative care in sub–Saharan Africa. Despite increasing access to ART, these burdensome and manageable problems persist. The assessment of these problems is essential alongside assessment of ART virological outcomes.
Methods- Consecutive patients in five care centers across two countries completed the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale–Short Form, with additional demographic and disease–oriented variables.
- Two hundred twenty–four patients participated.
- The most common symptoms were pain in the physical dimension (82.6%) and worry in the psychological dimension (75.4%). Interestingly, 71.4% reported hunger.
- Women, and those with worse physical function, were more likely to experience burden.
- However, being on antiretroviral therapy (ART) was not associated with global, physical, or psychological symptom burden.
