Center for Psychosocial Health Correlates of Vitality in HIV+ Adults: Perceived Social Support and...

Center for Psychosocial Health

Correlates of Vitality in HIV+ Adults: Perceived Social Support and Life Regard

Yen Nguyen, Chwee-Lye Chng, Ph.D., Mark Vosvick, Ph.D., and Marissa Perales

University of North Texas


Correlates of Vitality in HIV+ Adults: Perceived Social Support and Life Regard 2

Introduction• HIV/AIDS can be physically and psychologically

debilitating, undermining coping skills, and draining vitality (Harmon et al., 2008).

• Higher levels of social support are associated with higher vitality in HIV populations (Winterling et al., 2007). Additionally, having meaning in life can contribute to vitality (Eller et al., 2007).

• Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) coping deficit theory suggests that how we appraise stress (via life regard) and how we use environmental resources (via social support) could influence how we manage HIV (via vitality).

• We hypothesized that HIV+ adults with higher levels of social support and life regard will correspondingly report higher levels of vitality.



Model

HIV - Vitality

Social Support Life Regard

This model represents the relationship between Vitality, Social Support and Life Regard. As Social Support and Life Regard increase , so does Vitality.



Hypotheses• Vitality will be positively

correlated with Social Support.

• Vitality will be positively correlated with Life Regard.

• Social Support and Life Regard will account for a significant amount of variance in Vitality.



Measures Used in Analyses

Medical Outcomes Study – HIV(Wu, 1996)

Used Vitality subscale Cronbach’s α = 0.78 Likert type scale with 6 items Responses - 1 = Tired all of the time, 6 = None of the time Ex. “Did you have enough energy to do the things you wanted

to do?”Life Regard

(Zimet et al., 1988)

α = 0.79 – 0.86 Likert type scale with 28 items Responses - 1 = Do not Agree, 3 = Agree Ex. “I really don’t have much of a purpose for living, even for

myself.”



Measures cont.

Multidimensional of Perceived Social Support(Zimet et al., 1990)

α = 0.85 – 0.88 Likert type scale with 12 items Subscales –

Family Friends Significant other

Responses - 1 = Very Strongly Disagree, 7 = Very strongly agree “I can talk about my problems with my friends.”



Methods After receiving IRB approval, seropositive individuals from

the Dallas/ Ft. Worth area were identified and recruited from the community.

They completed consent forms and were given a self-report, computer-generated survey created by the Questionnaire Development System (QDS) at the University of North Texas – Center for Psychosocial Health.

Using univariate, bivariate and regression statistical analyses we examined the relationships between perceived social support, life regard and vitality in HIV+ participants.

We multiplied scores for the Vitality scale by (-1) due to an inverse scoring difference in the data to provide a more accurate portrayal of our findings.



Participant Demographics

Gender Number Percent

Female 35 55.6%

Ethnicity:

African – American 43 68.3%

European – American 18 28.5%

Other 2 3.2%

Mean (SD) Range

Age 47.83 (8.75) 24-66



Results

Variable Mean Actual Range Possible Range Calc. α

Vitality 12.91 (4.57) 4 – 22 4 – 24 .86

Life Regard 66.02 (12.13) 43 – 84 28 – 84 .90

Social Support 56.57 (22.35) 12 – 84 0 – 100 .96

Univariate Statistics



Results cont.

1 2 3 4 5 6

1. Age --

2. Gender .04 --

3. Gay/Bisexual .10 .83** --

4. African - American .15 .41** .55** --

5. Vitality .18 .05 .05 .11 --

6. Social Support .12 .21 .24 .32* .29* --

7. Life Regard .03 .25* .25* .07 .59** .25

Bivariate Statistics

*p <.05, **p <.01



Results cont.Regression Analyses

Predictors Vitality

β T VIF Tolerance

Age -.17 -1.72 1.05 .96

Gender .24 2.26 0.03 .86

Life Regard -.21 -2.06 1.11 .90

Social Support -.59 -5.65 1.12 .90

F (5, 57) = 9.33, Adjusted R² = .40, p < .05



DiscussionOur study found significant correlations between Vitality, Life Regard and Social Support supporting our hypotheses. Our findings are consistent with a previous study (Eller et al., 2007) in which participants who reported high levels of Life Regard and Social Support also reported strong levels of Vitality.



Clinical ImplicationsThe majority of our sample reported use of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART), an effective combination of drugs that help to suppress viral levels of HIV. Moreover, HAART has adverse reactions that contribute to fatigue and other physical side effects that deplete energy levels in HIV+ adults (Tamarin et al., 2004).

The loss of energy associated with HAART could hinder coping abilities. Individuals suffering from HIV/AIDS must obtain strong social support and develop a positive meaning in their lives to improve overall vitality.



Future Research

Future studies should focus on the fatigue caused by HAART medications and should include further development in coping strategies with HIV/AIDS by developing meaning in life and well constructed social support systems.



Limitations• The cross-sectional correlational design

of this study limits the ability to draw causal inferences from our findings

• Possibility of bias with self – reported techniques used in the questionnaires

• Generalizability of our findings is limited since all participants were recruited from only one geographic are in the U.S.

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