ABSTRACT
When acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) was first diagnosed in this country, individuals frequently learned their human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) serostatus only in the advanced symptomatic stages of disease progression. Under these circumstances, with relatively short latencies between diagnosis and death, quality of life assumed less importance in HIV treatment than it does today. Currently, with increased emphasis on early HIV antibody testing of individuals in high-risk groups and increased medical options for treatment, individuals may now live with known HIV infection for up to 12 to 15 years (Pantaleo, Graziosi, & Fauci, 1993). Within this frame, patients are commonly infected with the virus for 6 to 10 years before the onset of AIDS-defining symptoms (Fauci, 1991; Pantaleo et al., 1993). As such, HIV-infected individuals are now being faced with a chronic, degenerative, progressive disease, which at this time still has no cure. When HIV infection is viewed as a chronic disease, a myriad of quality of life issues emerge.
