Coping with HIV disease among seropositive women: psychosocial correlates

With HIV becoming more of a chronic illness, and with a shift in the demographics of the HIV pandemic to women, it is important to understand which psychosocial factors relate to positive coping behaviors in HIV-infected women. Additionally, socioeconomic factors have frequently confounded the interpretation of results of many other studies of stress and coping in HIV-infected individuals. In the present study, 58 HIV-infected women were assessed. These women were generally well-educated, employed women and therefore did not suffer from socioeconomic factors associated with inner city living, commercial sex work, or drug use. We performed a discriminant function analysis to determine which of five psychosocial variables could discriminate between those who strongly self-identified with each of three coping styles from those with low self-identification. The three coping styles included an active, problem solving style, a hopeless, given-up style, and a stoic style. Different patterns of psychosocial variables discriminated between those who strongly identified with a coping style from those who did not. For fighting spirit, the best combination of predictors (loadings > .25) were: strong social support, lower loneliness, depression, and anger, and a belief in a chance locus of control. The best combination of predictors for identification with a helpless coping style were: loneliness, depression, and anger, lower social support and less belief in a chance locus of control. Stronger identification with a stoic coping style were belief in a chance locus of control and lower social support, loneliness, and anger. Results of the study point to areas of psychosocial functioning which need to be strengthened or diminished in order to maintain effective coping for HIV-infected women and enhance their quality of life.