Outcomes Study: PozQoL Quality Of Life Scale Can Help HSSPs Evaluate And Better Support Patients Living With HIV

CPS will present “Quality of Life in HIV Care: Implementing PozQoL in Specialty Pharmacy Practice” at the American Conference for the Treatment of HIV (ACTHIV).

May 2024

A new CPS study has found that an emerging quality of life scale—PozQoL—is effective in helping health system specialty pharmacy (HSSP) teams better evaluate the quality of life (QoL) for patients living with HIV (PwHIV).

“Quality of Life in HIV Care: Implementing PozQoL in Specialty Pharmacy Practice," studied how using a well-rounded, HIV-specific QoL assessment tool, PozQoL, could help specialty pharmacy teams manage patient QoL.

How can specialty pharmacy teams use PozQoL to improve quality of life for patients living with HIV?

PozQoL is an empirically validated quality of life measurement scale that helps providers more comprehensively evaluate QoL and disease impact for patients living with HIV. 

“Many national studies have found that people living with HIV report lower QoL than those without HIV,” the creators say. “To pursue QoL, a person living with HIV needs access to high quality, comprehensive, and non-stigmatizing support and services for their whole person.”

Why CPS studied PozQoL utilization among HSSPs

After learning about the benefits of PozQoL at ACTHIV 2023, the authors decided to pilot the validated QoL tool in several CPS HSSPs. Specialty pharmacy teams often care for PwHIV as they receive antiretroviral medications. Thus, they are often the best team members to evaluate QoL and initiate support for PwHIV.

To conduct the study, CPS’ HSSP teams seamlessly integrated PozQoL into specialty pharmacists’ clinical workflows using TherigySTM's specialty pharmacy patient management system. The teams then conducted QoL evaluations for each PwHIV, covering four key domains: psychological, social, health concerns, and functional status. Any low or moderate scores were promptly identified, enabling the HSSP teams to intervene and provide additional support for these individuals.

Lead author Advit Shah, BSc., BSc., Pharmacy, RPh, SCS, will present the findings in a poster at ACTHIV, May 2-4, 2024. Additional authors included Khang Tran, PharmD; Andrew Wash, PharmD, PhD; Abbas Dewji, PharmD; Lily Duong, PharmD; Ana Lopez-Medina, PharmD, PhD; Amanda K. Cooper, PharmD.

To learn what the team discovered, download the poster.