• J Pain Symptom Manage · Jul 2012

    Multicenter Study

    Prevalence, burden, and correlates of physical and psychological symptoms among HIV palliative care patients in sub-Saharan Africa: an international multicenter study.

    • Richard Harding, Lucy Selman, Godfrey Agupio, Natalya Dinat, Julia Downing, Liz Gwyther, Thandi Mashao, Keletso Mmoledi, Tony Moll, Lydia Mpanga Sebuyira, Barbara Ikin, and Irene J Higginson.
    • Department of Palliative Care, Policy, and Rehabilitation and The Cicely Saunders Institute of Palliative Care, King's College London, London, United Kingdom. richard.harding@kcl.ac.uk
    • J Pain Symptom Manage. 2012 Jul 1;44(1):1-9.

    ContextDespite HIV remaining life limiting and incurable, very little clinical research focus has been given to the prevalence and related burden of physical and psychological symptoms for those accessing palliative care. Despite evidence of problems persisting throughout the trajectory and alongside treatment, scant attention has been paid to these manageable problems.ObjectivesThis study aimed to measure the seven-day period prevalence and correlates of physical and psychological symptoms, and their associated burden, in HIV-infected individuals attending palliative care centers in sub-Saharan Africa.MethodsConsecutive patients in five care centers across two countries completed the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale-Short Form, with additional demographic and disease-oriented variables.ResultsTwo 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.ConclusionThis 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.Copyright © 2012 U.S. Cancer Pain Relief Committee. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…