This study measured quantitatively and explored qualitatively silencing behaviors and affectivity (mood) in women living with HIV/AIDS and confirmed the validity of the Silencing the Self Scale and the Positive and Negative Affect Scale. Silencing behaviors are interpersonal communication styles that suppress personal needs and feelings to preserve relationships with others. Silencing behaviors serve as protective strategies that allow one to divorce oneself from an overbearing culture. Affectivity is a way of measuring one's personal mood state by a positive to negative continuum. The results indicate that the women silenced themselves profoundly, especially when it came to putting the needs of their children or dependents before their own. The women also had high levels of negative affectivity. The research findings from this study extend nursing knowledge by addressing the unique social processes of women living with HIV/AIDS within health care service structures and significant social groups. Further exploration of "silencing" as a phenomenon of this group through measurement and experience will help define specific interventions that are meaningful to and for women living with HIV/AIDS.

For the past 5 years, a successful collaboration of a medical center, a community-based HIV/AIDS service organization, a university school of nursing, and women living with HIV/AIDS in an inner city community resulted in a series of educational programs1 for women living with HIV/AIDS, their family, friends and caregivers. These programs were intended to provide inner-city women who were living with HIV/AIDS with knowledge and new insights from the voices of their peers. Topics focused on their self-care and empowerment so that they could take control of their wellness and their health care while remaining in their community. The efforts made in launching the collaborative educational series created trusting relationships between academic, clinical, and community service agencies, professional caregivers, and the recipients of their care. The most significant contribution belonged to the women living with HIV/AIDS themselves: After the programming they turned their health and life experiences into "action" by planning a research project that will test the efficacy of an intergenerational HIV prevention program for adolescent women of color in their community in the future.

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