Quality of life among South African patients receiving antiretroviral therapy in the Western Cape Province.

Compared to patients not receiving treatment, antiretroviral therapy (ART) users may experience a lower viral load, an increased CD4 count, slower disease progression, fewer opportunistic infections, and more rapid recovery time from HIV-related illnesses. As such, health related quality of life (HR-QOL) is likely to be considerably greater for ART users than patients not receiving treatment. The dearth of QOL research in sub-Saharan Africa brings into focus the need for and importance of documenting the various dimensions of well-being among persons living with HIV in this region of the world. We thus sought to report on the performance of South African patients enrolled in a public government funded antiretroviral therapy (ART) program. We administered the Functional Assessment of HIV Infection (FAHI) to a convenience sample of patients receiving ART in the Western Cape in South Africa. We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to determine the factor structure of the FAHI amongst South African ART users. The CFA revealed a poor model fit of the data. However the EFA factor structure closely approximated the subscales of the measure, indicating the dimensions of physical, emotional, functional, and social well-being and cognitive functioning. We identified problematic items contributing to the poor model fit and contribute to the knowledge base on QOL amongst ART users in South Africa.