Personal chaos in HIV patients' lives may be a barrier to regular medical care, UCLA S...(rior to the study 83 percent had seen a ...),Health

In developing the new scale to measure chaos in adults lives, the researchers took as their model the 15-item Confusion, Hubbub, and Order Scale (CHAOS), designed for parents to assess chaos affecting childrens home lives. The researchers changed some questions in the CHAOS scale to reflect a persons life in general and whittled the assessment down to six simple statements designed to key in on the level of chaos in patients lives. These statements had a five-point response ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.

The statements were:

• My life is organized.
• My life is unstable.
• My routine is the same from week to week.
• My daily activities from week to week are unpredictable.
• Keeping a schedule is difficult for me.
• I do not like to make appointments too far in advance because I do not know what might come up.

The researchers found that those patients who did not have spouses or partners and those with at least one unmet social-service need, such as transportation or housing, scored highest on the chaos scale. They also found that patients with more chaos in their lives were less likely to have had two or more outpatient HIV care visits and were more likely to have missed two or more visits in the six months prior to enrolling in the study. These patients also had lower mental health status, both when they enrolled in the survey and at follow-up. The researchers, however, did not find an association between life chaos and emergency department visits or physical health status.

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