Survival Analysis of People Living With Hiv/Aids Under Chronic Hiv-Care and Antiretroviral Treatment: the Case of Black Lion Specialized Hospital
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Date
2009-06-03
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The AIDS epidemic has now spanned nearly three decades. It has become the most devastating disease human kind has ever faced. It is a chronic life-threatening condition that weakens the body’s immune system, leaving it unable to fight off illness and is the last stage in a progression of diseases resulting from a viral infection known as the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV or AIDS virus) which is a retrovirus that infects cells of the human immune system, destroying or impairing their function. There is no cure for HIV infection or AIDS nor is there a vaccine to prevent HIV infection. However, new medications and treatments not only can slow the progression of the infection, but can also markedly suppress the virus, thereby restoring the body’s immune function and permitting many HIV positive people to lead a normal, disease-free life. The aim of this research paper is therefore to make a contribution towards the general overview of the HIV/AIDS disease, the treatment, to demonstrate the application of survival analysis, thereby to identify important factors that have significant influence to the survival status of HIV positive people and to obtain the mean and median survival experience in a follow-up period of four years (2005 to 2008). The data collected include 1,000 patients from Black lion specialized hospital. The study is composed of descriptive and regression model analysis. The descriptive analysis involves Kaplan-Meier estimation to determine the average and median survival time, comparison of survival and hazard functions; log-rank test for testing homogeneity across the levels of the variables and the Proportional Hazards Regression Model to identify the covariates that have statistically significant effect on the survival experience of HIV positive people. The data analysis employed statistical computer software packages. The result of the study showed that HIV positive people have an average survival time as low as 4 years and as high as 8 years and also have median survival time that ranges from 3 to 5 years, as time increases survival decreases irrespective of whether patients take the ART or not. However, the decrease of survival time with increase of time is lower for HIV positive people who take ART. The significant predictors of survival are age (younger and older age groups), sex, functional status of bedridden, taking one, three and four medications, ART, CD4 count and weight. The antiretroviral treatment has an effect of improving the health quality of people living with HIV.
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Keywords
Survival Analysis, People Living With Hiv/Aids, Under Chronic Hiv-Care, Antiretroviral Treatment, Black Lion Specialized Hospital