[Social support and quality of life in the HIV infection].

OBJECTIVES: To verify the relationship between social support and health related quality of life (HRQoL), specifically if a low level of social support implies in worse results in the HRQoL, and to establish the relative weight of the social support in the prediction of the HRQoL in a sample of patient with HIV infection.
DESIGN: Cross sectional study, descriptive and correlation study.Setting. Urban university hospital. PARTICIPANTS: 100 patients were evaluated draw from the HIV Unit of the university hospital, by self-report questionnaires. MEASUREMENTS: Social support questionnaire Duke-UNC-11, HRQoL questionnaire MOS-SF30.
RESULTS: It has been detected significant differences in the QoL of people with HIV infection according to the level of social support that they presented; in short, those with a low level of social support had presented a worse perceived health, more pain, a worse physical functioning, more difficulties in the daily activities, higher health related distress, worse cognitive functioning and they experienced worse physical and emotional health that in the previous month. On the whole the HRQoL was worse in those subjects with a low level of social support. In the same way, the lineal regression equation, show that the level of social support was predictor of the HRQoL.
CONCLUSIONS: The social support is an important variable in the understanding of the well-being and QoL in people with HIV infection, address efforts for the development of this personal resource contributes directly for improvement of the QoL.