title: Quality of life and its determinants for heroin addicts receiving a methadone maintenance program: Comparison with matched referents from the general population.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Quality of life (QoL) is found to be lower in heroin addicts; however, few studies examine detailed QoL performance and related factors in heroin patients attending a methadone maintenance treatment program (MMTP). The study thus aimed to explore QoL and its determinants for publicly-funded and self-paid patients attending an MMTP.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants were recruited in Jianan Psychiatric Center, Tainan, Taiwan, during their first clinic visit for the MMTP. Age-, sex-, education-, and municipality-matched referents were collected from the 2001 Taiwan National Health Interview Survey database. The participants had a mean age of 38.29 years [standard deviation (SD) = 7.65 years] for publicly-funded (n = 129) and 37.97 years (SD = 7.16 years) for self-paid (n = 105) MMTP patients. Matched referents (n = 217) were 37.74 years (SD = 7.44 years). All participants were measured with the brief version of the World Health Organization's Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) assessment. MMTP patients additionally went through tests for the hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Both publicly-funded and self-paid MMTP patients had lower QoL scores than their matched counterparts in the physical and psychological domains (p < 0.05) after control for confounding by age, sex, education, and municipality. Detailed individual item analyses showed that publicly-funded MMTP patients had lower scores for almost all items related to the physical, psychological, and social domains as compared to the referents because of HIV infection (p < 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  To improve the QoL of heroin users coming for MMTP, we recommend that clinicians pay attention to the comorbidity of HIV infection and individual items/facets.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Chung-Ying
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Department of General Psychiatry, Jianan Psychiatric Center, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Tainan, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Kun-Chia
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan; Departments of Internal Medicine and Occupational and Environmental Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. Electronic address: jdwang121@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Jung-Der
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Division of Environmental Health and Occupational Medicine, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli, Taiwan; Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Lukas Jyuhn-Hsiarn
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015897:Comorbidity; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000150:complications; D006556:Heroin Dependence / Q000150:complications / Q000188:drug therapy*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008691:Methadone / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D058850:Opiate Substitution Treatment; D011788:Quality of Life; D012044:Regression Analysis; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013624:Taiwan; D014944:World Health Organization
chemical_list: D008691:Methadone
keywords: heroin abuse; human immunodeficiency virus; methadone maintenance treatment; quality of life