Symptom manageability in Swiss HIV-infected patients

BackgroundManaging symptoms in daily life is a challenging problem for people living with HIV. As traditional parameters used to identify symptoms needing management do not integrate aspects of daily living with symptoms, we introduced ‘perceived symptom manageability’ to fill this gap.AimThe aim of this study was to quantitatively explore ‘perceived symptom manageability’ in a sample of 268 persons living with HIV.MethodsSecondary analysis of existing cross-sectional data. Social support, gender, age, depressive and anxiety symptoms were bivariately and multivariately analyzed and related to symptom experience and manageability as measured by the HIV Symptom Assessment Scale and the HIV Symptom Manageability Scale.ResultsLeast manageable symptoms were hair loss, vomiting and insomnia. Multivariately, age (beta = − .11; p = .024), symptom distress (beta = − .62; p < .001) and total anxiety and depressive symptoms (beta = − .18; p = .003) were statistically significant correlates of symptom manageability.ConclusionsAlthough a promising concept to identify symptoms needing management, further research employing primary data is recommended.