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

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