Resumen de Impacto de la infección por el virus de la inmunodeficiencia humana (VIH) en la calidad de vida infantil
Today, infection with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a pandemic with political, economic and social problems beyond the sector of public health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a total of 38.6 (33.4 to 46.0) million people in the world are infected, and the final phase of infection (AIDS) has caused more than 25 million deaths. In total to date, more than 65 million people have been infected. HIV infection also has a disproportionate impact on young people and children, not only from direct infection of the virus, but even more because of the deaths of those who represent the support for their basic economic and social needs.
The study of the quality of life of HIV+ children, from the standpoint of educational psychology aims to: identify levels of morbidity, assess the impact of treatment and infection, identify the needs based on family socioeconomic indicators and measure the level of satisfaction with living conditions from the perception of children infected with HIV.
This study is a multidisciplinary research project on the "impact of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection on the quality of life of children." The target group was composed of 71 HIV+ children from the pediatric cohort of hospitals consisting of University Hospital Gregorio Marañón", University Hospital La Paz,and University Hospital "Carlos III", and 34 healthy children, all between the ages of 5 and 14. To determine the perceived quality of life, the "Spanish version of the profile of child health (Child Health and Illness Profile [CHIP-CE]),questionnaire was used. This questionnaire is a generic measuring instrument of the quality of life for children. The socio-environmental dimension of the quality of life was measured via semi-structured interviews with pediatricians and nurses, parents and teachers/tutors of the students in the case of healthy children. The information received was reflected in a data recording protocol. Analysis and statistics of the results were carried out with the statistical package SPSS 14.
The results show that in despite of substantially decreased mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) rates in recent years, this method of transmission affects more children in the poorer districts of Madrid. It has also been proven that the impact of infection on HIV+ children extends to all aspects of quality of life, including physical, psychological and socio-familial, and has a significant impact on academic achievements.
This report provides results from rigorous research taken from an unusual approach making it highly innovative. It is important to clarify that this is a diagnostic evaluation of the situation of HIV+ children with the hope of developing national educational proposals to eliminate MTCT and offering psycho-pedagogical guidance to schools to respond to everything related to this infection.
