| Summary: | Tiansheng Xie,1,2 Haibo Yan,3 Guohua Wang4 1Zhejiang Sino-German Institute of Life science and Healthcare, School of Biological and Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310023, People’s Republic of China; 2State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310003, People’s Republic of China; 3Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Shaoxing, 312030, People’s Republic of China; 4Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Jiaxing, 314500, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Tiansheng XieZhejiang Sino-German Institute of Life science and Healthcare, School of Biological and Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, 318 Liuhe Road, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, 310023, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86 571 86021350Email tianshengxie@zust.edu.cnPurpose: Social support is increasingly recognized to be important in care of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH), we firstly translate and validate the disease-targeted social support instrument in Chinese and to explore the correlation with WHOQOL-HIV.Patients and Methods: We established content validity for HIV-related social support scale (HSSS) and administered the resultant questionnaire to 310 PLWH. Descriptive statistics were generated for each of the variables of general characteristics; student t-test was used to compare the different groups.Results: The HSSS demonstrated a high level of internal consistency, both within each subscale and with the total score; all Cronbach’s α values exceeded a priori threshold of ≥ 0.70. The HSSS cores were positively correlated with WHOQOL-HIV total scores (Pearson correlation: 0.39, P < 0.001). We also found that higher educational level, personal income, CD4 cell count, and shorter duration of antiretroviral therapy are significantly associated with a higher level of social support (P < 0.05).Conclusion: Social support may improve quality of life for PLWH, Chinese version of HIV-related social support scale can be used in future clinical practice.Keywords: HIV, AIDS, quality of life, social support
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