Coping styles in HIV positives and HIV negatives

BACKGROUND: Choosing the most useful and versatile way to solve one's personal and social problems is one of the most important choices in individual life. The aim of this study was to compare the coping styles of people living with Human immunodeficiency virus positive and negative. METHODS: This is a Cross-sectional study that accomplished in Shiraz Behavioural Disease Counselling Centre in 2019 and 2020. For this purpose, in the first phase, 40 HIV+ and 40 HIV− patients were randomly selected to answer the questionnaire of dealing with the stressful conditions of Andler and Parker. In the second phase, the same questionnaire was filled out along with a reality distortion questionnaire from similar individuals (40 HIV+ and 40 HIV−). RESULTS: 92% of the HIV population in this study was between 15 and 55 years and 8% was upper than 55 years. 90% of them had no university degree. Among all, 47.5% of them were, 48.5% were self-employed and 49% of them were infected sexually. The results showed that in the first stage there was a significant relationship between marital status and the chances of getting the disease in people, and after controlling the demographic factors, coping styles did not show a significant effect on the disease. In the second stage, the factors of age, sex, education, and marital status had significant effects on people living with HIV, but the effect of coping styles on people with HIV was not significant (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Therefore, it can be concluded that demographic factors more than coping styles can affect the chances of high-risk behaviours; so, what is identified and measured as a coping style in people in the process that leads to the manifestation of high-risk behaviours or healthy behaviour does not matter much. It should be noted that the reason for rejecting the hypotheses of this study could be the effect of cultural and social factors of Iranian society.