How Does HIV Affect Mental Health?

Ever since the first cases of what eventually came to be known as AIDS were diagnosed in the early 1980s, people with HIV/AIDS have been stigmatized. Over time, there have been many misconceptions about this disease. Even though there have been many discoveries, and treatments for HIV have improved over time, there are still many people who understand very little about this disease. This lack of understanding, along with fear, misinformation about how the disease is transmitted, and “moral” judgments made about the types of people who contract HIV, all have led to stigmatization of, and discrimination against, people who are living with HIV/AIDS. Understanding the stigmatization of people with HIV/AIDS is an important social justice issue because that stigmatization can result in people with HIV being insulted, rejected, gossiped about, excluded from family and social activities, fired, and even jailed. People with HIV are no different from people suffering from other chronic diseases. Instead of being alienated, they have a right to be treated with fairness, respect, and dignity.

African American young men are infected with HIV at an alarmingly high rate in comparison to other races. The negative stigmas that is attached to having HIV in the black community, especially for men can be extremely detrimental and harmful to their overall health. One stigma that was attached to having HIV was death, death was at one time believed to be imminent, and now HIV is about restructuring their lives to face the future (Buseh, Kelber, Stevens & Park, 2008, p.409), yet they still battle other stigmas surrounded around HIV.

​African-Americans are the ethnic group most affected by HIV/AIDS. Ironically african-americans represent 14% of the population of the United States , but represent 44% across the gender line. African-american men represent 70% of HIV infections among the ethnic group, however african-american women are also highly at risk of HIV infection. Indeed they have a rate of infection that is 15 times greater than the rate for caucasion women (HIV among African-Americans, 2012). Most African-american women (85%) are infected with HIV through heterosexual sex, often with partners, who claim to be

Many people are unaware of their health status further increasing transmission of disease in young adult African American(AA) women age 18-24. Human Immunodeficiency Viruses (HIV) infects and also destroy blood cells (i.e. lymphocytes) that the body need to fight off infection (Mays 2011). African American women HIV positive, age 18-24 the magnitude of issue of the health disparity in this particular population will be addressed along with the many factors of social and health determinants. The health concern is towards the increase of transmission among young AA mothers and their children who are the health outcomes in many ways than one. The many social and health determinants that affect the women today are on going cycles that have yet to be broken. African American women make 64% of new infection cases for HIV. African american obtain a vulnerability unlike other minorities. The health population’s culture and stigma has played an important role in the community. The concern for AA women is the increase of new cases and most importantly the spread of the disease to these women’s children. The mortality rate of AA women with HIV is 47.1% as of 2012. (Siddiqi 2015)

According to recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 1.2 million individuals in the United States have HIV (about 14 percent of which are unaware of their infection and another 1.1 million have progressed to AIDS. Over the past decade, the number of HIV cases in the US has increased, however, the annual number of cases remains stable at about 50, 000 new cases per year. Within these estimates, certain groups tend to carry the burden of these disease, particularly the gay, bisexual, and men who have sex with men (MSM) and among race/ethnic groups, Blacks/African American males remain disproportionately affected. (CDC)

The stigma towards HIV positive African-American women also exists within their own communities; unfortunately, this stigma towards these women does not encourage them to come out as HIV positive individuals. The problem with this fear is that it not only worsens the anguish for the sick individual, but also puts the people around the individual at risk. In “Social Context of Rural Women with HIV/AIDS,” authors Kenneth D. Phillips, Linda Moneyham, Sandra P. Thomas, Mary Gunther, Medha Vyavaharkar discuss the significance of the stigma felt by HIV positive women; the authors point out that the existing stigma causes these women to live in secret (2011). In order to keep their illness hidden, they would have to be maintain some form of normalcy with the people around them. Societal stigma plays an important role in the occurrence of HIV; it can be studied by examining the results of “stigma reduction” in African-American communities (Loutfy et al, 2015). HIV stigma reduction is difficult when dealing with African-American women because the stigma of sexism and racism cannot be ignored. One of the other effects of stigma is depression (Logie, James, Tharao, & Loutfy, 2012). In a “multi-method community-based research (CBR) study with Women’s Health in Women’s Hands (WLWH) across Ontario,’’ researchers also found that other forms of stigma like race and gender do correlate with the stigma felt by HIV positive African-American women

Over the course of the semester, we have discussed the complex relationship between biological, psychological, and social factors in relation to psychological disorders. For this paper, I will be discussing how psychological and social (psychosocial) interventions can positively affect AIDS and cancer. Typically, psychological and social factors influence your health in two ways, which include: “affecting the basic biological processes that lead to illness and disease” and “long-standing behavior patterns may put people at risk to develop certain physical disorders (Durand 277).” The first disease that I will be discussing is AIDS, which is the final stage of HIV. In our book, the authors discuss the overall effects of psychosocial interventions

This study aims to determine whether internalized stigma and discrimination relates to depression, excessive catastrophic thoughts about pain, pain interference, and increased alcohol use in PLWH with chronic pain. PLWH with chronic pain were recruited from the 1917 Clinic which provides comprehensive core medical and social services to adults with HIV. Controls were recruited from surrounding community. Participants completed a series of reliable questionnaires assessing pain catastrophizing, depression, pain interference, and alcohol use in addition to HIV and chronic pain-related stigma and discrimination questionnaires. In hierarchical multiple regression models adjusted for demographic and clinical variables, internalized HIV and chronic pain stigma together accounted for significant portions of variance in depressive symptoms (R2 = 35.8%, p < .001), pain catastrophizing (R2 = 17.7%, p = .008), pain interference (R2 = 15.3%, p = .005), and hazardous alcohol use (R2 = 15.0%, p = .031).

This essay will demonstrate how health psychology can aid nurses in caring for patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). It will look at how stigma can impact on the behaviour of patients with HIV as well as explain causes for non adherence. Health psychology studies thoughts, emotions and behaviours related to health and illness. It uses a biopsychosocial approach which considers all aspects of a person's life. Health psychology allows nurses to have a better understanding of how patients perceive health, what influences health risk behaviours and what prompts people to adopt healthy behaviours (Ogden, 2012a). The health belief model (HBM), which was developed in 1966 by Rosenstock, is used as a way of explaining why people

In HIV care, ART adherence is the extent to which a patient takes their HIV medicine and coincides with a health-provider’s recommendation. The lack of adherence to antiretroviral therapy can result in increased viral resistance, insufficient viral suppression, the progression of AIDS or even death (Al-Dakkak, I, 2013). The health care needed for HIV treatment is life-long as HIV is a chronic disease that can result in many stigma-related barriers to care, and sophisticated treatment regimens which can cause drug interactions or unwanted side effects (Stricker, S. M, 2014). Depression is one side effect consistently found to be associated with non-adherence to ART. Although there are many studies suggesting depressive symptoms

The fight against HIV is not just that of one’s body, but it’s a bigger battle of the mind, against itself. A battle against one self’s insecurities, fears and self-destructive behavior. The fear of stigma or of being discriminated against and not being ‘normal’, having a limited ‘shelf-life’ are all very expected. Life altering events such as being diagnosed with HIV, bereavement, the breakdown of a relationship, financial troubles, or dealing with starting HIV treatment or its side-effects, can result in feelings of unhappiness, emotional distress and self-pity. This can also include feeling emotions such as anger, guilt, fear, sadness and loneliness – which are difficult to manage and may interfere with one’s ability to get

Individuals infected with human immunodeficiency virus infection/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) are living longer lives and changing the perception of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. There has been extensive research conducted on high risk groups for HIV/AIDS but little has been done to research and address the social aspect of aging and HIV/AIDS. It is important to have a more conclusive understanding of HIV/AIDS in the aging population due to the climbing rate of new infection among older American adults aged 50 and greater. Primary themes that will be examined are how the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is associated with older American’s attitudes toward sexual health education, ageism, stigma and mental health. Although

When AIDS made its debut in the early 80s, societies branded it as disease that infected homosexuals and/or IV drug abusers. First things first, AIDS and HIV are different. HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is the virus that infects a person, and if left untreated leads to the fatal disease AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome). However, over the last 35 years, we have learned that, in reality, AIDS does not discriminate against sexual orientation, drug addictions, race, age or any other factor; however, it victimizes one gender more often than the other. Researchers prove that, on a global scale, women are more susceptible to contracting HIV/AIDS than are men. Both statistically and logically, women experience higher incidences

Because of such social and economic challenges, fear, grief, anger, anxiety and possibly depression and suicidal thoughts are common psychological effects which will at one time haunt the infected women since the husband may distant himself, withdrawing any form of support as he accuses her of bringing the infection into the family. In countries like Zimbabwe, the cultural, social and religions expectations create beliefs about rigid gender roles that result in the lack of empowerment among women. The differences in power in interpersonal relationships create a context of oppression that propitiates psychological trauma.

The goal of the study is to compare HIV education and GSP as treatment options for those HIV-positive people afflicted with depression. In addition to this, the study wants to compare the effects of these two therapies on depression, general functioning, and perceptions of social support and self-esteem (Nakimuli-Mpungu, et al., 2015, p. 9). The study was based on principles found in cognitive beahviour theory, social learning theory, and the sustainable livelihoods framework (Nakimuli-Mpungu, et al., 2015, p. 2). Cognitive behavioural theory maintains that the way in which we perceive our surroundings is integral to the way we react to those same surroundings (Nakimuli-Mpungu, et al., 2015, p. 2). Social learning theory stipulates that behaviour is learned from one 's environment, with the individual exhibiting the behaviour being observed referred to as the "model" (Nakimuli-Mpungu, et al., 2015, p. 2). The sustainable livelihoods framework says that without effective livelihood strategies, opportunities for livelihood will be more limited (Nakimuli-Mpungu, et al., 2015, p. 2).