Abstract
BACKGROUND: During recent years, Quality of Life (QoL) is a significant assessment factor in clinical trials and epidemiological researches due to the advent of Antiretroviral Therapy (ART), Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) has become a manageable,chronic disease. With regards, more attention must be paid to the QoL of infected patients. Limited evidence exists on the impact of ART on QoL among HIV infected patients. Due to lacking of a systematic approach to summarizing the available evidence on the clinical determinants of People Who Live with HIV/AIDS (PWLHs') QoL, this study aimed to analyze the impact of clinical determinants (ART experience, CD4 count < 200, co-morbidities, time diagnosis and accessibility to cares) on QoL among PWLHs'. METHODS: This study was designed in accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). PubMed, Science Direct, Web of Science, and Cochrane electronic databases were searched in February 2017 to identify all past studies that discussed social and behavioral characteristics of QoL in PLWHA. To recognize effective factors on social and behavioral QoL, a meta-analysis was conducted. Polled Odds Ratios (ORs) were utilized at a 95% confidence level. Since sampling methods differed between articles in the systematic review, we evaluated pooled estimates using a random effect model. Metan, metareg, metacum, and metabias commands in STATA version 13.0 were applied to analyze the data. RESULTS: Our findings indicated that ART has a positive impact on QoL, with a pooled effect size at approximately 1.04 with a confidence interval between 0.42 to 1.66 which indicates this impact is not very considerable and may be relatively neutral. The pooled effect size for CD4 count on QoL was .29 (95%CI = .22-.35), indicating that there is a negative associate between CD4 count and QoL. The co-morbidity as a negative determinant for QoL among HIV/AIDS infected people. The pooled effect size implies on a relative neutral association, although the confidence interval is wide and ranges between 0.32 to 1.58. The pooled effect size is about 1.82 with confidence interval 1.27 to 2.37 which indicates a considerable positive association with lowest level of heterogeneity. CONCLUSIONS: The results illustrated that time diagnosing and availability to hospital services had significant relationship with a higher QoL and CD4 < 200 was associated with a lower QoL. In conclusion, policy makers should set an agenda setting to provide a suitable diagnostic and therapeutic facilities to early detecting and continues monitoring the health status of People Who Live with HIV/AIDS (PWLHs').