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Posttraumatic Growth Among HIV/AIDS Patients 1
Author(s) -
Milam Joel E.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb01981.x
Subject(s) - psychology , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , posttraumatic growth , social psychology , clinical psychology , virology , medicine
Correlates ( n = 835 at Time 1) and predictors ( n = 434 at Time 2) of posttraumatic growth (PTG; perceiving positive life changes stemming from diagnosis) over 1.6 years were examined among a diverse sample of HIV/AIDS patients. PTG was common–59% of participants reported to have experienced at least moderate positive changes since diagnosis. At Time 1, PTG had significant negative associations with age, alcohol use, depression, and pessimism; and positive associations with African American ethnicity (vs. White), female gender, eating a healthy diet, and optimism. At Time 2, religiosity was positively associated with PTG. The process of experiencing PTG over time was associated with lower levels of depression over time. Although the underlying process of PTG remains unclear, these results suggest that PTG is worthy of intervention focus.