Psychosocial Adjustment to Illness among HIV-Positive People from Buenos Aires, Argentina

OBJECTIVE. To analyze the process of psychosocial adjustment to illness in a sample of people living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus from Buenos Aires, Argentina. METHODS. Cross-sectional analytical study. The sample consisted of 144 HIV-positive people chosen by simple random sampling. The PAIS-SR questionnaire was used to measure the Psychosocial Adjustment process, which is made up of 46 items organized into 7 domains, whose final score ranges between 0 and 100, interpreted so that the higher the score, the worse the psychosocial adjustment process. RESULTS. The respondents reported were mostly male (82.63%), single (61.80%), with university studies (50.00%), without children (74.30%), and with a steady job (88.19%); the mean age of the participants was 43.8 years. The median global score was 51.4 (IQR: 12). The domains with the worst perception of psychosocial adjustment were: Health care orientation (Me: 56, IQR: 20), extended family relationship (Me: 55, IQR: 20), and Sexual relationship (Me: 54, IQR: 14), while those who had a better perception of adjustment were: Domestic environment (Me: 48, IQR: 8), Psychological distress (Me: 48, IQR: 17), Social environment (Me: 50, IQR: 18) and Vocational environment (Me: 50, IQR: 12). It was found that patients with a poor psychosocial adjustment process had low adherence to treatment, higher frequency of smoking, and sedentary lifestyle (p<0.001), while male sex, older age, and employment were related to a better psychosocial adjustment process (p<0.001). CONCLUSION. The process of psychosocial adjustment to illness in the study group is medium; adjustment was positively related to self-care habits such as better adherence to pharmacological treatment, physical activity, and not smoking.