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Some patients with human immunodeficiency virus experience an improved quality of life following their diagnosis, U.S. researchers found.
Dr. Joel Tsevat of the University of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center and colleagues conducted two sets of interviews and completed chart reviews of 347 HIV outpatients from three U.S. cities from 2002-2004.
"In two interviews, conducted a year to 18 months apart, patients compared their current life with life before being diagnosed with HIV -- we found that many patients said their life is better than it was before their diagnosis, although results of such comparisons often change over time," Tsevat, the principal investigator, said in a statement.
The first interview showed that 31 percent of the patients said their lives were better after diagnosis, while 28 percent said they were worse, and the remainder -- 140 patients -- said their lives were about the same or that they were undecided.
After the second interview, about one-fifth of patients changed their answers to indicate life improvement after diagnosis and one-sixth changed answers to reflect a feeling of life deterioration.
"The two main factors associated with the feeling that life has improved, relative to pre-diagnosis, were optimism and spirituality," Tsevat said.
The findings are published in the journal AIDS Patient Care and STDs.
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