Impact of HIV Perception on the on the Quality of Life of People Living with HIV - Mediation Effects of Flexible and Tenacious Goal Pursuit

in Psychology, Health and Medicine (2016), 22

Medical advances contribute to raise life expectancy of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV). However, they still face challenges related to the disease, thus, quality of life (QOL) became a priority on ... [more ▼]

Medical advances contribute to raise life expectancy of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV). However, they still face challenges related to the disease, thus, quality of life (QOL) became a priority on the field. The self-regulatory model (SRM) guided this study. Illness perceptions (IP) are the beliefs, cognitions, representations of a disease, impacting PLHIV coping strategies and QOL. Tenacious goal pursuit (TGP) is the pursuit of goals with determination, flexible goal adjustment (FGA) is doing it with flexibility, disengaging if necessary, they can both be considered as coping strategies. This study aims to measure the impact of HIV Perception in the QOL of PLHIV mediated by the TGP and FGA. Data was collected from 196 PLHIV with the WHOQOL-HIV Bref, the Brief-IPQ and the FGA and TGP scales. Structural equation model provided a good fit consistent with the theoretical SRM. IP, TGP and FGA had direct effects on the QOL of PLHIV. IP had also an indirect effect (partially mediated by TGP/FGA), suggesting that TGP/FGA reduce the impact of a threatening IP in the QOL. Goal oriented interventions should focus in the HIV perception of PLHIV to ameliorate their QOL [less ▲]

Quality of life of people living with HIV/AIDS: Effects of illness perception and coping strategies

in Psicologia: Teoria e Pesquisa (2016), 32

This study aims to investigate the quality of life (QOL) predictors of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), from the perspective of Leventhal’s Self-Regulation Model, in which the influence of the illness ... [more ▼]

This study aims to investigate the quality of life (QOL) predictors of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), from the perspective of Leventhal’s Self-Regulation Model, in which the influence of the illness perception on QOL is mediated by coping strategies. Ninety-five PLWHA answered to the instruments Brief IPQ, Brief Cope and WHOQOL-HIV BREF concerning, respectively, illness perception, coping strategies and QOL. The results indicate that illness perception has direct and indirect effects in QOL, mediated by coping strategies. The more HIV is perceived as threatening, the worse is the perception of QOL of PLWHA; however, the increased use of acceptance, distraction and instrumental support coping strategies and the less use of behavioral disengagement and positive reinterpretation could mitigate this negative effect. [less ▲]