Usefulness of Patient-Generated Index for HIV to Measure Individual Quality of Life: A Study from Thailand

To measure health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in Thai HIV patients using the patient-generated index for HIV (PGI-HIV) and to compare the psychometric properties of the PGI-HIV with those of the EuroQol five-dimensional (EQ-5D) questionnaire and the Medical Outcome Study HIV Health Survey in terms of practicality, reliability, validity, and responsiveness.

In this study, two rounds of interviews were carried out in HIV outpatients who met the eligibility criteria and attended the HIV Clinic of Warinchamrap Hospital between January and March 2010. The patients were interviewed using a data collection form and three HRQOL measures (the PGI-HIV, the EQ-5D questionnaire, and the Medical Outcome Study HIV Health Survey) to assess the practicality and validity. The second interview was performed to check the test-retest reliability and responsiveness.

A total of 210 patients completed the study. They were mostly women (69.5%), with a mean age of 39.2 ± 11.1 years. The majority with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention clinical stage C took the current antiretroviral drugs within 1 year. The average PGI score was about 0.60, implying HIV/AIDS and antiretroviral drug therapy decreased the patients' quality of life by 40% from their healthy life. Three mostly cited impact domains were hyperlipidemia, lipid maldistribution and lipodystrophy, and hepatitis. The PGI-HIV was considered as practical, with a mean difficulty score of 3.7 ± 0.8, highly reliable (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.75; P < 0.001), and responsive to HRQOL changes (effect size = 0.81; standardized response mean = 0.99), but not valid when compared with CD4 levels and viral loads (all Pearson' r < 0.2; P > 0.05).

The PGI-HIV was used to measure the individual HRQOL in a Thai sample of HIV-positive patients. It proves to be practical, highly reliable, and very responsive to changes in patients' HRQOL.