Assessment Of Coping Strategies Among Adolescents And Young Adults Living With Hiv/Aids At The Fevers Unit, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital

Abstract

ABSTRACT Living with HIV/AIDS has been noted to be an extremely stressful experience that has an effect on one’s physical and mental health. In Sub-Saharan Africa, increasing numbers of children with perinatally acquired HIV (PAHIV) are living into adolescence due to the advent of highly active anti-retroviral therapy. Adolescents potentially have longer periods to live with this disease. Coping with the disease becomes even more important in this sub-group. The purpose of the study was to assess the coping strategies employed among adolescents living with HIV attending clinic at the Fevers Unit KBTH, and the factors that affect their choice of coping strategy. An analytic cross-sectional study was carried out on 154 young adults at the Fevers Unit, KBTH. The adolescent version of the KidCope was used to assess the choice of coping strategies. Data was analyzed using Stata v.16. Bivariate, univariate and multiple linear regression analysis was used to identify significant factors that affect choice of coping strategy at 95% CI and a p-value of 0.05. The mean age for respondents was 19.16 years(95%CI-18.72-19.58). Majority of respondents(57.1%) used predominantly positive coping strategies with cognitive restructuring(87.0%) being the most commonly used strategy. There were significant differences in coping index score among levels of education with ALHIV with tertiary education having higher coping scores. There were also significant differences observed in coping strategy index for age(0.96, p=0.046), presence of both parents as caregivers.(1.53, p=0.014) and stigma and discrimination as a stressor(1.37, p=0.008). Participants generally adopted positive coping strategies in managing the disease. Factors that affected choice of positive coping strategies included increasing age, higher levels of education and the presence of both parents as caregivers. The importance of a good social support structure and pursuing further education needs to be emphasised in counselling ALHIV as it promotes good choices of positive strategies.