The Impact of Combination Antiretroviral Therapy and its Interruption on Anxiety, Stress, Depression and Quality of Life in Thai Patients (original) (raw)

2009, The Open AIDS Journal

Objective:Investigation on anxiety, stress, depression, and quality of life (QoL) within STACCATO, a randomised trial of two treatment strategies: CD4 guided scheduled treatment interruption (STI) compared to continuous treatment (CT).Participants:Thai patients with HIV-infection enrolled in the STACCATO trial.Methods:Anxiety, depression assessed by the questionnairesHospital Anxiety and Depression Scale(HADS) and DASS, stress assessed by theDepression Anxiety Stress Scale(DASS), and QoL evaluated by theHIV Medical Outcome Study(MOS-HIV) questionnaires. Answers to questionnaires were evaluated at 4 time-points: baseline, 24 weeks, 48 weeks and at the end of STACCATO.Results:A total of 251 patients answered the HADS/DASS and 241 answered the MOS-HIV of the 379 Thai patients enrolled into STACCATO (66.2 and 63.6% respectively). At baseline 16.3% and 7.2% of patients reported anxiety and depression using HADS scale. Using the DASS scale, 35.1% reported mild to moderate and 9.6% reporte...