The effects of psychosocial factors, distress, and disclosure on the health outcome of HIV-1 positive African-American women

The rate of AIDS among minority women is increasing due to larger numbers infected by means of heterosexual transmission. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of coping, social support, and family function on health/immune outcome, the effects of health/immune variables on the aforementioned variables, the association between distress variables with health/immune variables and the effects of disclosure on health and psychological variables in a sample of African-American women.Faster declines in CD4 count are associated with higher levels of social support satisfaction. The number of people to whom HIV status was disclosed, and the depth of disclosure relationship were found to be moderators in this relationship between change in CD4 count and social support satisfaction. In addition, as average change in CD4 count becomes more positive, higher levels of disclosure is associated with greater satisfaction with social support. Also, as average change in CD4 count becomes more positive, a greater depth of disclosure relationship is associated with greater satisfaction with social support. The results also suggest that greater increases in CD3% are associated with higher levels of family functioning.Higher levels of maladaptive coping and number of people in the social network are associated with higher levels of perceived stress and that higher levels of maladaptive coping are associated with higher levels of depression. In addition, higher levels of maladaptive coping and higher levels of family functioning are associated with an increased frequency of hassles and a higher level of maladaptive coping is associated with a higher intensity of hassles.Those who are high disclosers exhibit higher rates of increase in NK% than those who are low disclosers. In addition, higher levels of communication within a family on the SFSR tasks is related to higher numbers of people present at the SFSR taping with whom information about HIV status has been shared.These results indicate that immune variables may influence psychosocial outcomes in this population that maladaptive coping strategies are associated with higher levels of distress and that disclosure and family functioning may play a role in the interaction between immune variables and psychosocial variables