Gender Variation in Coping Stretegies of Hiv Positive Males and Females
Keywords:
Coping strategies, HIV-positive patients, gender variation, cognitive avoidance coping, behavioural avoidance coping, and cognitive behavioural coping.Abstract
Background: HIV is a disease that affects not only a person's physical health but also their mental health; those affected face significant difficulties in social interaction.
Objective: The current study aimed to compare coping strategies between HIV-positive men and women.
Method: A comparative cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample size of 40 HIV-positive patients aged 25 to 50 years, recruited from the ART Centre in Kanpur. These included 20 men and 20 women. Purposive sampling was used to select the sample. All subjects were assessed on Dr. A. K. Srivastava's Coping Strategy Scale to measure their use of five different coping strategies.
Results: Independent samples t-tests revealed that women reported higher levels of three coping strategies: cognitive behavioural approach, behavioural avoidance approach, and cognitive avoidance approach. Cohen's d was also calculated to assess the effect of coping mechanisms on both groups. The d values for behavioural avoidance coping, cognitive behavioural coping, and cognitive avoidance coping were calculated to be 0.86, 0.75, and 0.68, respectively. These results showed significant gender disparities.
Conclusion: This finding emphasizes the need to teach patients more effective coping mechanisms to reduce their stress levels and improve their quality of life.
