Association between coping strategies, social support, and depression and anxiety symptoms among rural Ugandan women living with HIV/AIDS

Abstract

Poor mental health detrimentally affects quality of life among women living with HIV/AIDS. An improved understanding of how coping and social support relate to depression and anxiety in this population can facilitate the design and implementation of appropriate mental health treatment and support services. Secondary analysis was conducted on baseline data from 288 HIV-positive women enrolled in a parenting intervention in Uganda. Depression and anxiety symptoms, social support, and coping were assessed with the Hopkins Symptom Checklist and adapted versions of the Multidimensional Scale for Perceived Social Support and Ways of Coping Questionnaire. General linear regression models were used to estimate associations between coping and mental health. Based on report of elevated symptoms, approximately 10% of women were categorized as having clinically-relevant depression or anxiety. Emotion-focused (EF: p < .001) and problem-focused (PF: p = .01) coping were associated with more depressive symptoms while greater family support (EF: p = .002; PF: p = .003) was associated with fewer depression symptoms. More anxiety symptoms were associated with reporting both coping strategies (EF: p < .001; PF: p = .02) and higher community support (EF&PF: p = .01). The cross-sectional nature of the study limits our ability to rule out the role of reverse causation in the significant relationship between coping and mental health. Findings do suggest that high family support can be protective against depression and anxiety symptoms among women living with HIV.

In utero antiretroviral exposure and sociodemographic characteristics on neurodevelopment of HIV‐exposed uninfected children versus HIV‐unexposed uninfected healthy children in Malawi

“…In addition, neurodevelopmental delay in prenatally HIV‐exposed children may be caused by many environmental and socioeconomic differences in their families 26 . Low socioeconomic status, pervasive poverty, nutritional hardship, level of education, and poor caregiving place these children at greatest neurodevelopmental risk 27,28 . Here, we also explored potential socioeconomic confounders to MDI and PDI scores of children, including home style, family income, feeding mode, place of residence, and parents' occupation and degree of education.…”

“…26 Low socioeconomic status, pervasive poverty, nutritional hardship, level of education, and poor caregiving place these children at greatest neurodevelopmental risk. 27,28 Here, we also explored potential socioeconomic confounders to MDI and PDI scores of children, including home style, family income, feeding mode, place of residence, and parents' occupation and degree of education. We found that the difference of MDI score between HEU children and HUU children might be associated with the number of family children, type of delivery, baby's place of residence, feeding styles, and father's or mother's degree of education.…”

Common Psychological Disorder among Patients with Retroviral Disease

“…Thus, having good support was found to be an essential coping mechanism for adjustment and act as a buffer towards stress in mental and physical health (Hostinar & Gunnar, 2015). Positive social support lowered the risk of getting depression and in contrast, less support associated with a higher score of depressive symptoms (Fawzi et al, 2012;Seffren et al, 2018).…”

The Polish Adaptation of the Strategic Approach to Coping Scale

“…The relationship between adaptation and preferred coping strategies was covered by numerous studies involving various groups: students (Heffer & Willoughby, 2017;Kozhukhar, 2017;Smith & Yang, 2017), cancer patients (Kaliampos & Roussi, 2017;Knowles et al, 2017;Zadeh et al, 2018), depression patients (Drapeau et al, 2017), multiple sclerosis patients (Grech et al, 2018), people discriminated against on racial grounds ( Levy et al, 2016;Park et al, 2018), and women with HIV/AIDS (Seffren et al, 2018).…”