Dataset of cognitive behavioral intervention for persons living with HIV in China: A randomized pilot trial

Globally, persons living with HIV (PLWH) are vulnerable to depressive and anxious symptoms [1]. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is one of the first-line mental health treatment strategies for PLWH [2–3]. However, structured and systematic cognitive behavioural intervention (CBI) is rare for PLWH in China. This data article presents the raw data of a parallel two-arm randomized controlled trial investigating the preliminary effects of CBI on depression, anxiety, medication adherence, quality of life, and CD4 lymphocyte counts for PLWH in China. Twenty PLWH who aged ≥18, were undergoing antiretroviral therapy (ART), and scored the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4) ≥2 were recruited face-to-face and randomly assigned to groups based on computerized random number generation. Intervention participants received a tailored group-based 10-week-long CBI. Control participants only took laboratory tests and received free ART medication. The data includes demographic variables, exposure variables and outcomes. The outcomes were repeated-measured at baseline (T0), after the intervention (T1), and after 6 months of follow-up (T2). We assessed depression and anxiety via the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), quality of life via the WHOQOL-HIV BREF, medication adherence via self-report adherence, the visual analog scale (VAS) and the medication possession ratio (MPR). CD4 lymphocyte counts were available on participants’ medical records. The main manuscript of this dataset is “cognitive behavioral intervention for persons living with HIV in China: a randomized pilot trial” (Han et al., submitted for publication) [4].