Bridging the Gap: Conference Record [Abstract book, International Conference on AIDS (12th: 1998: Geneva, Switzerland)]

12th World AIDS Conference

Abstracts 14357-14363 255

14363 The effect of religion upon perceived quality of life in a
cohort of tuberculosis patients
Lackson Mzizi, A. Haworth, C. Chilufya. University of Zambia, PO. Box 30043,
Zambia
Objectives: To study the effect of religion upon perceived quality of life (QOL) in
a cohort of tuberculosis patients, many also infected with HIV.
Hypothesis: Religious affiliation and beliefs play a major role in the perceived
QOL of these patients.
Methods: The study was conducted using a WHO QOL instrument with additional questions in the religious domain. Only patients with confirmed tuberculosis
and/or HIV infection were eligible for the study. Using a scoring system to produce
a QOL profile the scores were crosstabulated with the variables age, sex and
religion.

Results: A total of 118 patients was studied. The mean age was 32 years.
The sample comprised 60.2% (71) males and 39.8% (47) females; 21.1% (24)
of the respondents denied being currently ill though they were on antituberculous
treatment; 56.6% (64) of the sample claimed to be 'born again' Christians and
92.2% (107) said they belonged to a church; 14.4% (17) stated that illness had
affected their faith in God; 53.4% of the sample said illness affected them in
participating in church activities. However being a born-again christian had no
significant influence on perceived QOL as measured by this instrument.
Conclusion: Religious affiliation or being born-again does not seem to influence the perceived quality of life of these patients. The mechanism of denial as
shown by the proportion stating that they were not suffering from any illness and
from information obtained in counselling may have influenced the results. This
hypothesis needs to be tested further.