Quality of Life among Persons with HIV/AIDS in Iran: Internal Reliability and Validity of an International Instrument and Associated Factors.

The purpose of this cross-sectional study on 191 HIV/AIDS patient was to prepare the first Persian translation of complete WHOQOL-HIV instrument, evaluate its reliability and validity, and apply it to determine quality of life and its associated factors in Tehran, Iran. Student's t-test was used to compare quality of life between groups. Mean Cronbach's α of facets in all six domains of instrument were more than 0.6 indicating good reliability. Item/total corrected correlations coefficients had a lower limit of more than 0.5 in all facets except for association between energy and fatigue facet and physical domain. Compared to younger participants, patients older than 35 years had significantly lower scores in overall quality of life (P = 0.003), social relationships (P = 0.021), and spirituality/religion/personal beliefs (P = 0.024). Unemployed patients had significantly lower scores in overall quality of life (P = 0.01), level of independence (P = 0.004), and environment (P = 0.001) compared to employed participants. This study demonstrated that the standard, complete WHOQOL-HIV 120 instrument translated into Farsi and evaluated among Iranian participants provides a reliable and valid basis for future research on quality of life for HIV and other patients in Iran.

Adverse reactions of trivalent influenza vaccine in HIV-infected individuals.

In this study, we assessed the adverse reactions to influenza vaccination in HIV-infected individuals. From November 2006 to January 2007, a total of 203 HIV-infected persons were recruited. Demographic data were collected. Subjects were evaluated 48 h and 15 days after vaccination for symptoms and significant health events as possible side effects. Participants were instructed to measure their temperature in the morning and evening for 2 days post-immunization and to assess injection site and systemic adverse reactions. 80.3% of the subjects were male. The mean age of the subjects was 36.9 +/- 7.9 years. Local and systemic reactions were reported by 61 (30%) and 62 (30.5%) persons, respectively. The most common adverse reactions to the influenza vaccine included skin redness (37 cases), induration (32 cases), and pain (55 cases) as local reactions, and fever (22 cases), myalgia (46 cases), headache (12 cases) and weakness (35 cases) as general reactions. 1.4 % of the subjects had fever over 38.5 degrees C. There were significant associations between myalgia and flushing with CD4 counts (P<0.05). We found no relationship between adverse reactions and sex, history of smoking, allergy, alcohol, and drug usage, stage of HIV infection, anti-retroviral therapies, anti-TB medication and previous vaccination. We concluded that inactivated influenza vaccine administered in HIV-infected adults did not result in potential adverse events in this study population.

Prevalence of hepatitis A virus infection in a HIV positive community.

Hepatitis A is acute and usually self-limiting disease, but sometimes it can be dangerous such as in immunosuppressed patients. Purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence of hepatitis A serology in HIV/AIDS Patients. 247 HIV positive patients from March 2005 to September 2006 were entered in this study. Participants completed questionnaires to elicit demographic, drug and sex risk information, and were (tested for hepatitis A. They were all referred to Counseling center for behavioral diseases in Imam Khomeini Hospital. Cases were chosen from volunteers with no history of jaundice or acute hepatitis. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 13 and results were compared between seropositive and seronegative groups using T test and chi square. Statistical significance was accepted at a level of P < 0.05.200 (80.98%) were male and 47 (19.02) were female. The mean age was 36 +/- 9.3. 238 (96.3%) of patients were seropositive. One hundred percent and 96% who were born in rural and urban areas were seropositive, respectively. Also, 85.7% and 96.6% who reside in rural and urban areas were seropositive, respectively. Iran is an endemic country for hepatitis A in which most people has asymptomatic infectious during childhood. According to high prevalence of hepatitis A positive serology in HIV/AIDS patients, routine vaccination seems to be unnecessary. But special sub populations like HIV infected infants should be evaluated more precisely and different approaches may be needed for them.

Lack of HIV infection among truck drivers in Iran using rapid HIV test.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of HIV infection in Iranian long distance truck drivers using rapid HIV test. METHODS: The study included 400 consecutive participants in Bazargan city, north-west of Iran in the late 2008 and the early 2009. RESULTS: No HIV infection was observed among these long distance truck drivers. CONCLUSIONS: Although results of this study is plausible compared to other similar studies, repeated surveys are necessary to know the trend of HIV infection in truckers in Iran.