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. 2019 Jan;28(1):47-56.
doi: 10.1007/s11136-018-2002-5. Epub 2018 Sep 15.

Quality of life of persons living with HIV and congruence with surrogate decision-makers

Katherine B Curtin  1   2 , Yao I Cheng  3 , Jichuan Wang  3   4 , Rachel K Scott  5 , Leah Squires  6   7 , Debra A Benator  8   9 , Maureen E Lyon  3   4 ; Palliative Care Consortiums
Affiliations

Quality of life of persons living with HIV and congruence with surrogate decision-makers

Katherine B Curtin et al. Qual Life Res. 2019 Jan.

Abstract

Purpose: Physicians and caregivers rate patient quality of life (QOL) lower than patients rate their own QOL. This study investigated discrepancies between self-assessments of patient QOL by adults with HIV and their surrogate decision-makers.

Methods: We collected baseline data from 223 adult dyads in the FAmily-CEntered (FACE) Advance Care Planning (ACP) clinical trial, consisting of HIV positive patients and their chosen surrogates. Participants independently completed the Medical Outcome Study-HIV Survey (MOS-HIV) and the Palliative care Outcome Scale (POS). We used Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test to assess differences in overall patient-surrogate means. We used Prevalence Adjusted Bias Adjusted Kappa (PABAK) statistics to assess dyadic agreement, with surrogate HIV status and cohabitation status as grouping variables.

Results: Patients were 56.1% male, 86.1% Black/African-American, aged 22-77 (mean = 50.83, SD = ± 12.33). Surrogates were 43.8% male, 84.1% Black/African-American, aged 18-82 (mean = 49.73, SD = ± 14.22). 46.2% of surrogates lived with the patient. 64.6% of surrogates reported negative HIV status. Surrogates were more likely to state patients were ill, p = 0.032. Among patient-surrogate dyads, most QOL assessments showed poor (0.00-0.39) or fair (0.40-0.59) agreement and agreement tended to be even poorer among patient-surrogate dyads where the surrogate had a shared HIV diagnosis.

Conclusions: QOL discrepancies are said to arise from healthy surrogates overestimating the effects of chronic illness. In this novel assessment, many surrogates had a shared HIV diagnosis, without increased agreement. These findings highlight the challenge of accurately assessing patient QOL by surrogates, even when there is a shared HIV diagnosis. Improved communication is needed between patients and surrogates about the patients' representation of illness. National Clinical Trial Number: NCT01775436.

Keywords: Advance care planning; Caregivers; Disability paradox; HIV/AIDS; Health-related quality of life; Medical decision-making.

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Conflict of interest statement

Compliance with Ethical Standards

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This research was approved by the IRB at Children’s National (coordinating center) and at all participating study sites. The Children’s National Medical Center IRB’s Federal Wide Assurance (FWA) number is FWA00004487. The institutional organization number is IORG0000245. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. The authors declare there are no conflicts of interest to report.

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