AIDSQuest: The HIV/AIDS Survey Library
Survey Summaries

WHO—Quality of Life-HIV Scale (WHOQOL-HIV)  

Overview
The World Health Organization created the WHOQOL-HIV instrument in order to analyze HIV/AIDS pilot data, which was given to 900 HIV-positive and well respondents in six different centers. It was prepared by Dr. Suzanne Skevington and Ms. Kathryn O’Connell of WHO, UK.

Questions cover, but are not limited to:

• Pain and discomfort

• HIV and AIDS symptoms

• Positive feelings

• Body image and appearance

• Negative feelings

• Personal relationships

• Sexual activity

• Forgiveness

• Spiritual connection

Methodology/validity
The WHOQOL-HIV instrument was originally 115 piloted items, and was reduced to 33, covering 12 facets and seven domains. The selection of these items was based on a step-by-step procedure, which included frequency, reliability, multi-dimensional scaling, cluster analysis, one-way ANOVAs, and MAP analysis. The Cronbach’s alpha demonstrates good internal consistency for facets with a range of 0.31–0.94 and for domains 0.87–0.94. Internal consistency for the HIV/AIDS module was 0.93 (the alpha was 0.98 for WHOQOL-100, indicating good internal consistency for the questionnaire).

The first column of the scale (reliability) gives the inter-item for the HIV/AIDS items. This information is provided for the facets with at least three items in them. The second column (facet correlations) provides correlations between an HIV and AIDS sub-facet and its corresponding WHOQOL facet (e.g., the correlation of sub-facet sexual relations of people living with HIV or AIDS and the WHOQOL sexual relations).

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For additional information please contact: 
Horizons 
Population Council 
4301 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 280 
Washington, DC 20008
Telephone: +1 202 237 9400 
Facsimile: +1 202 237 8410 
E-mail: horizons@popcouncil.org 

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This page updated 21 August 2006

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