The Impact on The Quality-of-Life Dimensions Amongst Drug-Resistant TB Patients and TB-HIV Co-Infection – Brief Review

Author(s): Teodora Butnaru, Florin Dumitru Mih?l?an, Constantin Ancu?a

Drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) and Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) remains a major global public health issue, despite the efforts of the EndTB strategy and global HIV strategies to end these epidemics. There is a dearth of literature on the impact of TB/HIV co-infection on quality of life (QoL). The impact of tuberculosis and TB/HIV co-infection is not limited only to clinical indicators, but also to the quality of life, directly reduced by the disease and treatment, but also indirectly through the nature of the disease. For this short review, the PubMed database was used, using key words such as quality of life, drug-resistant tuberculosis, TB/HIV co-infection, physical, emotional impairment, treatment side effects. Patients with drug-resistant tuberculosis and TB/HIV co-infection face limitations in all areas of quality of life, both at initiation of treatment and at its completion. The impact of these two infectious diseases affects all areas of quality of life, physically, emotionally, professionally and financially. Assessing the health-related quality of life (HQoL) in human immunodeficiency virus positive people and TB-HIV co infected people is of extreme importance in designing strategies and implementing interventional programs on treatment care and support to people living with HIV and AIDS.