This bibliographic review aimed to analyze the abstracts of scientific articles on HIV/AIDS patients' quality of life, which were registered in the National Library of Medicine (MEDLINE) database between 1990 and 2002. The sample consisted of 124 abstracts, which were analyzed for publication frequency, country where the study was carried out, study outlines, sample size, number of publications, kind of life quality measuring instrument used and periodical in which the study was published. We concluded that, in spite of a considerable increase in the number of publications on this subject in the United States and European countries, in Brazil, few scientific articles have been written about it.
quality of life; HIV; acquired immunodeficiency syndrome; information storage and retrieval
