Social support and unsupportive social interactions: their association with depression among people living with HIV.

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Social support and unsupportive social interactions: their association with depression among people living with HIV.

AIDS Care. 1999 Jun;11(3):313-29. Unique Identifier : AIDSLINE MED/99403878
Ingram KM; Jones DA; Fass RJ; Neidig JL; Song YS; Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University,; Richmond 23284-2018, USA. kingram@saturn.vcu.edu

Abstract: Although numerous studies of people living with HIV have focused on positive social support, researchers have directed surprisingly little attention to the nature and effects of negative social interactions in this population. Based on data from a diverse sample of people with HIV (N = 271), we conducted a factor analysis to develop the HIV version of the Unsupportive Social Interactions Inventory (USII). Four types of unsupportive or upsetting responses that an HIV-positive person might receive from others were identified: insensitivity, disconnecting, forced optimism and blaming. In analysis with a sub-sample of 96 people with HIV, unsupportive social interactions were only moderately correlated with social support, suggesting that these constructs are relatively independent. Using hierarchical regression analysis, we found that unsupportive social interactions predicted a significant amount of the variance in depression, beyond the variance accounted for by physical functioning and positive social support. Partial correlations indicated that the relationship between unsupportive social interactions and depression was not an artifact of trait negative affectivity. Favourable evidence of the USII's reliability and validity suggests that the instrument provides a useful tool for assessing unsupportive social interactions experienced by people with HIV. Practical implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Keywords: JOURNAL ARTICLE Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome/PSYCHOLOGY Adult Depressive Disorder/*PSYCHOLOGY Female Human HIV Infections/*PSYCHOLOGY Male Middle Age Regression Analysis *Social Support Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
991230
A99C1054

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