The Quality of Life of People Living with HIV/AIDS Attending
Physical Activity Program in Rumah Cemara
Lucky Angkawidjaja, Eka Nugraha and Kurnia Eka Wijayanti
Faculty of Sport and Health Education, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Jln. Dr. Setiabudhi No. 229, Bandung, Indonesia
Keywords: Quality of life, Physical Activity, HIV/AIDS.
Abstract: This study aims at describing the quality of life of people living with HIV/AIDS who routinely attend physical
activity program in Rumah Cemara. This study uses descriptive and quantitative approach with cross-sectional
method. Study subjects were recruited through purposive sampling. Study instrument was a WHO
standardized questionnaire i.e. WHOQOL-BREF, analyzed descriptively. Results showed that the perception
of people living with HIV attending physical activity program in Rumah Cemara regarding their quality of
life and health generally unremarkable and satisfactory. The highest quality of life of people living with
HIV/AIDS routinely attend physical activity program in Rumah Cemarawas at social relations domain,
followed by psychological domain at the second place and then environmental relations domain at the third
place and the lowest quality of life was at physical domain.
1 INTRODUCTION
Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a
set of symptoms caused by Human Immunodeficiency
Virus (HIV). This virus is harmful for its ability to
compromise immune system. As a result, people
infected by this virus will be more susceptible to
acquire other infectious diseases. This virus can be
found in body fluid especially in genital discharge
and blood. The transmission is mainly happened
through risky sexual intercourse, blood transfusion,
use of needle syringe infected by HIV, organ/tissue
transplant, and transmission from pregnant mothers to
the fetus.
Since it was identified in 1981, 34 million people
have died because of this virus. In late 2014, it was
estimated that there were 36.9 million people living
with HIV/AIDS globally. Up to the end of 2014, in
Indonesia there were 206,084 cases where 150,285
were HIV cases and 55,799 were AIDS cases.
There are problems encountered by people living
with HIV/AIDS, such as access and consistency to get
medical treatment, stigma in the community, and
inequality to gain opportunity at work and to gain
achievement at their environmental preferences.
Rumah Cemara is a home for people living with
HIV/AIDS. There are many activities carried out in
this place, one of them is physical activity program.
There are various physical activities program that can
be done, from those aimed only to improve health to
sports competition. Through physical activity
program, people living in Rumah Cemara are
expected to have good quality of life. Their medical
treatment can also be supervised, and therefore they
will have equal quality of life with normal people
since they are given equal opportunity to do things,
including to gain achievements in sports.
Quality of life is defined as the individual
perception regarding their position in life in the
context of culture and value systems in which they
live and in relation to their goals, expectations,
standards, concerns (WHO, 1997).
World Health Organization (WHO) had long ago
defined “quality of life” and developed a
measurement tool that can be used across cultures and
were named WHOQOL. The brief version of
WHOQOL is WHOQOL-BREF, which measure
equality of life according to four domains, i.e. 1)
physical health; 2) psychological wellness; 3) social
relations; and 4) environmental relations. These four
domains were then translated into several facets
below:
1.1 Physical Health Domain
Physical health domain includes: 1) daily activities;2)
drugs and medical support dependence; 3) energy and
420
Angkawidjaja, L., Nugraha, E. and Wijayanti, K.
The Quality of Life of People Living with HIV/AIDS Attending Physical Activity Program in Rumah Cemara.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sports Science, Health and Physical Education (ICSSHPE 2017) - Volume 2, pages 420-424
ISBN: 978-989-758-317-9
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

tiredness; 4) mobility; 5) pain and discomfort; 6)
sleep and rest; and 7) working capacity.
1.2 Psychological Wellness Domain
Psychological wellness domain includes: 1) body
image and appearance; 2) negativity; 3) positivity; 4)
meaning; 5) self-esteem; and 6) thought, learning,
memories, and concentration.
1.3 Social Relations Domain
Social relations domain includes: 1) personal
relations; 2) social support; and 3) sexual activity.
1.4 Environmental Relations
Environmental relations includes: 1)financial source;
2) freedom, physical safety and security; 3) social and
health care; 4) neighbourhood: description of
individual residence condition; 5) opportunity to gain
new information and skills; 6) participation and
opportunity to do recreation and fun activities; 7)
physical environment; and 8) transportation.
Based on the background above, this study
focused on the quality of life of people with
HIV/AIDS who live in Rumah Cemara, who
routinely attend physical activity program i.e. sports.
2 METHODS
2.1 Approach and Methods
This study uses quantitative approach and descriptive
methods.
2.2 Study Subjects
Study subjects are people with HIV/AIDS, who live
in Rumah Cemara, and not addicted to narcotic drugs.
Study subjects recruited using non-probability
sampling method.
2.3 Data Collection Instrument
Instrument used is instrument from WHO called
WHOQOL-BREF. Study instrument was a closed
questionnaire in the form of check list, i.e. a
questionnaire where the respondents can have
answered by just giving a tick (√) in the appropriate
options column.
2.4 Data Analysis Technique
Data analysis technique used in this study was
descriptive statistics.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Results
3.1.1 Perception of Quality of life
The first question in the WHOQOL-BREF
questionnaire is about general perception of the
respondent on their quality of life in the past four
weeks. Respondents’ answers for the first question is
described in the figure below.
Figure 1: Perception of Quality of Life.
According to Figure1, half of the respondents
(50%) had “unremarkable” perception of their life.
The rest of the respondents, 23% had “good”
perception on their quality of life, 17% had “poor”
perception, and 10% had “very good” perception and
none (0%) of the respondents had “very poor”
perception on their quality of life.
3.1.2 Perception of Health
The second question of WHOQOL-BREF
questionnaire is about respondents’ perception of
their health. Data can be seen in the following figure.
10%
17%
moderat
e ; 50%
23%
0%
very bad
bad
moderate
good
very good
The Quality of Life of People Living with HIV/AIDS Attending Physical Activity Program in Rumah Cemara
421

Figure 2: Perception of Health.
Figure 2 shows respondents who perceived their
health as “satisfactory” and “unremarkable” have
similar proportion which was 33%. There were 20%
respondents perceived their quality of health as “very
satisfactory”, 14% perceived “unsatisfactory” and
none (0%) of the respondents perceived their quality
of health “very unsatisfactory.”
3.1.3 Description of Quality of Life
According to Domains
WHOQOL-BREF measures individual quality of life
according to four domains i.e. physical,
psychological, social relations, environmental
relations. A complete description of these domains
were shown in the figure below.
Figure 3: The Comparison of Quality of life based on
Domain.
Based on the data on Figure 3, it is seen that social
relationship domain is the highest domain in
respondents’ quality of life, which had a mean score
of 63.93, and then followed by psychological domain
had a mean score of 61.97. Next, the environmental
relation had a mean score of 57.60, and physical
domain had a mean score of 52.53, as the lowest
score.
3.2 Discussion
The findings indicate that the respondents felt their
life unremarkable, and HIV was not a burden towards
their life. It is supported by the fact that there were
relatively many respondents who felt that their quality
of life is good although they live with HIV/AIDS.
This finding is contradictory with Nojomi et al.
(2008) findings that show most people living with
HIV and AIDS perceived their quality of life
unsatisfactory.
The respondents’ condition that tends to be good
in perceiving their quality of life is in line with
Hardiansyah (2014) who state that quality of life
means the sufferer keeps feeling good although
she/he is suffering a disease. Furthermore, Khorudin
(in Hardiansyah, 2014) affirms that quality of life is
an important component in evaluating the prosperity
and life of people living with HIV/AIDS. The quality
of life cannot be interrupted by the concept of life
standard, especially by income. On the contrary, the
indicators of life standard concept do not only include
wealth and occupation, but also creating
environment, physical and mental health, education,
recreation, free time, and social ownership.
The data shows that the respondents perceive their
health in a satisfactory and unremarkable condition.
In meaning that, along with their perception towards
quality of life, the respondent generally felt that their
health is not burdened by HIV. This finding is not in
line with a research conducted by Campsmith (2003)
about quality of life of HIV-infected people. In their
report, Campsmith (2003) state that
“Disability and health-related quality of life are
becoming increasingly important issues associated
with HIV disease....... Like other researchers, we
found that lower HRQOL scores and poorer
perception of health were associated with more
advanced disease.”
The respondents in Rumah Cemara see the issue
of their quality of life and health do not influence their
condition. On the contrary, since the escalation of the
HIV is not really noticed, they did not feel that their
life and health are burdened. It is possible that they
felt satisfied with their health because they did some
regular physical activities program in RumahCemara.
regular physical activity can improve body’s function
and capacity, repair structure, and delay aging.
Moreover, they also state that “there is a strong and
influencing relationship between physical, wellness
and health activities program. Those who are
physically active will feel fit and healthy; those who
0%
13%
34%
33%
20%
very
unsatisfying
unsatisfying
moderate
satisfying
52,53
61,97
63,93
57,6
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
physically
dominant
psychologically
dominant
socially dominant environmentally
dominant
QU ALITY OF LIFE S CO RE ACCORDING TO D OMAINS
ICSSHPE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sports Science, Health and Physical Education
422

are healthy and fit have an opened opportunity to
improve physical activity.”
The social relationship domain had the highest
mean score amongst other domains describing quality
of life. In meaning that the respondents saw their lives
were much influenced by social relationship factors.
Social relationship is defined as a relationship
between two or more individuals who are influencing,
changing and making better each other’s behavior
(Myers, 1999). In social relationship, there is an
emotion or feeling that appears during
communication, which can be found in a form of love,
helping each other, attention and feeling empathy of
others’ feeling.
The respondents who live in Rumah Cemara
gained an intensive social relationship, which enabled
them to share and feel the same condition. It makes
them relatively strong in handling pain, and it
unintentionally influences their perspective on
quality of life. Bacon (Myers, 1999) affirms that
having relationship with others that make them
sharing thoughts and feeling can generate two effects,
namely doubling pleasure and lessening half of the
sorrow. This statement implicitly states that there is a
strong relationship between social relationship and
prosperity and quality of life.
Next, psychological domain is in the second
position in quality of life, which is perceived by the
respondents with score by 61.97%. This domain is
related someone’s mental. Riyadi (in Aliyono, et. al.,
2012) states that mental condition is about
individual’s ability in adapting themselves with the
desired development, both self and other’s demands.
It is also related with physical aspect, since an
individual can do activities well when he or she is
mentally healthy.
The respondents in Rumah Cemara had a
tendency to perceive themselves positively. It is
gained from the social support they got during their
stay there. The positive perception about themselves
and the ability of adapt with any demands become the
main predictor of high physiological domain of their
quality of life.
The environmental relation is quality of life
domain is in third place. It is in the second bottom
position, presumably because the respondents felt
their relationship with the environment is relatively
limited.
This condition is in line with Bolton and Talman
(2010) statement, as follows:
“Recent studies have brought to light a series of
interacting and complex relationships, many with
negative feedback loops, between HIV/AIDS and the
environment... The connections between HIV/AIDS
and the environment are complex, multifactoral, bi-
directional, and involve indirect as well as direct
pathways.”
Lastly, physical domain becomes the lowest
domain of quality of life. According to Selano (2015),
physical health is the ability of body organ to function
optimally in order to be able to do daily activities to
fulfill their life needs. The HIV virus infection that
attacks immune system, which is fatal to their life
health.
Those who are infected by HIV should try to
avoid others germ or virus that might worse their
condition (Selano, 2015). Therefore, it is common if
the respondents perceive their quality of life low if
seen from physical domain. This finding is contrary
with a similar research conducted by Hardiansyah
(2014) who discovers that physical domain got the
highest score in quality of life of HIV AIDS sufferer
in Makassar City.
4 CONCLUSIONS AND
RECOMMENDATION
4.1 Conclusions
Based on the findings and discussion, it is concluding
that:
 Generally, the respondents see their life
unremarkable and do not perceive their life
very unsatisfactory;
 The respondents’ perception towards their life
is generally satisfactory and unremarkable, and
no respondents perceive their life not very
satisfactory;
 Based on the domain of quality of life,
accordingly the highest domain of the
respondents is social relationship,
psychological domain, environmental relation
domain, and physical domain as the lowest.
4.2 Recommendation
The recommendation is intended to the following
parties:
4.2.1 Rumah Cemara Management
The Management of Rumah Cemara is recommended
to be consistent with its mission to sustainably
facilitate the needs by providing care, psychosocial
support, and treatment for people living with
HIV/AIDS.
The Quality of Life of People Living with HIV/AIDS Attending Physical Activity Program in Rumah Cemara
423

4.2.2 Sport Education Department
It is recommended to follow up the findings of this
research to create innovation like physical training
activities program that can be done by people living
with HIV/AIDS at Rumah Cemara.
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