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Identification of the most prevalent symptoms and sites of pain experienced by AIDS patients at Soweto Hospice, Johannesburg, South Africa

Includes bibliography.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Norval, D A
Other Authors: MacPhail, A P
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Public Health and Family Medicine 2015
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access_status_str Open Access
author Norval, D A
author2 MacPhail, A P
author_browse MacPhail, A P
Norval, D A
author_facet MacPhail, A P
Norval, D A
author_sort Norval, D A
collection Thesis
description Includes bibliography.
format Thesis
id oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/12566
institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:33:35.758Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2015
publishDateRange 2015
publishDateSort 2015
publisher Department of Public Health and Family Medicine
publisherStr Department of Public Health and Family Medicine
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/12566 Identification of the most prevalent symptoms and sites of pain experienced by AIDS patients at Soweto Hospice, Johannesburg, South Africa Norval, D A MacPhail, A P Palliative Medicine Includes bibliography. The aim of this study was to identify the ten most prevalent symptoms and five of the most common sites of pain in a patient with advanced AIDS. The setting was a Hospice In-Patient and Home Care program in Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa. Soweto has a population of approximately 3.5 million. The design was a descriptive quantitative analysis using a nurse-led questionnaire to collect data and was completed in 3 different languages. The patients included 103 adult patients with WHO Stage 4 AIDS who were alert enough and willing to participate. Patients with impaired cognitive function were excluded from the study. The main outcome measures included a list of 30 symptoms, 13 site-specific pains, age, gender, worst overall pain and/or symptom and access to antiretroviral therapy. The results were based on the review of data collected from 103 patients between May 2002 and February, 2003. The results showed the mean age of patients to be 35.4 years, females being an average of 4.4 years younger than males. There was a higher number of female respondents (62.63%) compared to males (37.37%). The ten most common symptoms in order of prevalence were pain (98%), loss of weight (81%), loss of appetite (70.87%), low mood (69.9%) weakness (66%), dry skin (56.3%), diarrhoea (53.4%), nausea and vomiting (44.7%), cough (44.7%) and fatigue (42.7%). 34.38% of respondents mentioned pain as being their worst overall symptom. The average number of pains experienced was 2.91. Female respondents reported significantly more anxiety and genital sores and pain. 3.88% of patients had had access to ART. Lower limb pain was the most prevalent pain (66%) followed by mouth pain (50.5%), headache (42.3%), throat pain (39.8%) and chest pain (17.5%). Conclusions drawn were that patients with advanced AIDS suffer significantly from pain and a number of distressing symptoms. In the light of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in SA, and the lack of access to ART, reforms are needed to increase knowledge and education in Palliative Care. There is a need for the development of standard protocols for the palliative management of AIDS-related pain and symptoms and more research into end-of-life care for these patients. 2015-03-04T19:00:44Z 2015-03-04T19:00:44Z 2003 Master Thesis Masters MPhil http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12566 eng application/pdf Department of Public Health and Family Medicine Faculty of Health Sciences University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Palliative Medicine
Norval, D A
Identification of the most prevalent symptoms and sites of pain experienced by AIDS patients at Soweto Hospice, Johannesburg, South Africa
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Identification of the most prevalent symptoms and sites of pain experienced by AIDS patients at Soweto Hospice, Johannesburg, South Africa
title_full Identification of the most prevalent symptoms and sites of pain experienced by AIDS patients at Soweto Hospice, Johannesburg, South Africa
title_fullStr Identification of the most prevalent symptoms and sites of pain experienced by AIDS patients at Soweto Hospice, Johannesburg, South Africa
title_full_unstemmed Identification of the most prevalent symptoms and sites of pain experienced by AIDS patients at Soweto Hospice, Johannesburg, South Africa
title_short Identification of the most prevalent symptoms and sites of pain experienced by AIDS patients at Soweto Hospice, Johannesburg, South Africa
title_sort identification of the most prevalent symptoms and sites of pain experienced by aids patients at soweto hospice johannesburg south africa
topic Palliative Medicine
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12566
work_keys_str_mv AT norvalda identificationofthemostprevalentsymptomsandsitesofpainexperiencedbyaidspatientsatsowetohospicejohannesburgsouthafrica