Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms among People Living with HIV and Childhood Sexual Abuse: The Role of Shame and Posttraumatic Growth

There is a critical need to examine protective and risk factors of anxiety and depressive symptoms among people living with HIV in order to improve quality of life. 

Structural equation modeling was used to examine the associations between HIV-related shame, sexual abuse-related shame, posttraumatic growth, and anxiety and depressive symptoms among a cohort of 225 heterosexual women and men who have sex with men (MSM) living with HIV who have experienced childhood sexual abuse (CSA). 

• Higher sexual abuse-related shame was related to more anxiety and depressive symptoms for heterosexual women. 
• Higher posttraumatic growth predicted less anxiety symptoms for only heterosexual women. 
• Higher posttraumatic growth predicted less depressive symptoms for heterosexual women and MSM, but the magnitude of this effect was stronger for heterosexual women than MSM. 

Psychosocial interventions may need to be tailored to meet the specific needs of heterosexual women and MSM living with HIV and CSA.

Purchase full article at:   http://goo.gl/p2Bhhb

By:  Willie TC1,2, Overstreet NM3, Peasant C1, Kershaw T1,2, Sikkema KJ4, Hansen NB5.

• 1Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
• 2Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA.
• 3Department of Social Psychology, Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA.
• 4Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, and Duke Global Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.
• 5Department of Health Promotion and Behavior, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA. nhansen@uga.edu. 
• AIDS Behav. 2016 Feb 2.

More at:  https://twitter.com/hiv insight

And: http://twitter.com/Prison Health