A Descriptive Cross sectional study on assessment of fatigue in people living with HIV and it’s impact on the quality of life

The epidemic of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection was first recognized in USA in 1980’s and over the course of years is a major global health problem.Since the beginning of the epidemic, 84.2 million [64.0–113.0 million] people have been infected with the HIV virus and about 40.1 million [33.6–48.6 million] people have died of HIV. Globally, 38.4 million [33.9–43.8 million] people were living with HIV at the end of 2021.

Fatigue is described as an overwhelming sense of tiredness, lack of energy, inertia, or fragility that increases with activity and reduces the person’s normal capacities. It is a heterogeneous condition of complex and multifactorial etiology, which is often unknown. Fatigue does not kill but it is a common, very disabling and debilitating symptom’. Fatigue is one of the common disabling symptoms among many chronic diseases including HIV infection The prevalence of fatigue reported in international studies range from 33% to 88% in PLHIV, and from 7% to 42% in the general population. Nonetheless, the chronicity of HIV infection post-HAART era and side effects has imposed an additional burden of HIV-related symptoms. The cause of fatigue among people living with HIV is probably multifactorial. Most of the studies focused on the physiological and/or psychological factors. Further, evidence suggests that fatigue is associated with age, gender, malnutrition, insomnia, unemployment, poor income, family burden, depression, social support system, several disease-related factors such as the stage of the disease, anaemia, the use of ART and certain laboratory parameters, as well as with the sociodemographic and psychological factors One of the most significant impacts of fatigue on PLHIV is its effect on their mental health. Many PLHIV report feeling depressed, anxious, or irritable due to their constant fatigue, which can lead to a decrease in their overall quality of life. Hence it is important to assess the prevalence of fatigue in PLHIV and risk factors associated with it.