Gender Differences in the Ways of Coping Amongst HIV and AIDS Patients

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) due to Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a viral disease that reduces the ability of a subject to defend the body against foreign substances. Many psychiatric and psychological syndromes accompanying HIV/AIDS may vary from one to another stage and every patient has to cope with both the disease and the accompanying stresses. This makes the patients doubly burdened, necessitating the positive coping and management among the HIV and AIDS patients. There are studies indicating that different coping strategies may influence the patients differently in managing the disease and mental health of the patients. It is important to study the differences in the ways of coping being adopted by these patients before designing interventions to train these patients about positive ways of coping. Gender is one of the important factors affecting how these coping strategies are mobilized. Therefore, the present study aimed to assess gender difference in adopting emotion and problem focused ways of coping by the HIV and AIDS patients. The investigation was carried out in Haryana on 500 patients suffering from this disease in age group of 25-50 years with mean age 37.5 years. An equal number of males and females, i.e., 250 male (HIV positive: 125 & AIDS: 125) and 250 female (HIV positive: 125 & AIDS: 125) patients were selected. The selected subjects were tested using the ways of coping questionnaire suggested by Folkman and Lazarus (1988). Frequency wise and amount/extent wise analysis was done. The Chi-square, means, SD's and 't' values were computed to interpret the data. The use of emotion-focused ways was more prevalent amongst both the male and female patients of HIV and AIDS. Simultaneously, the ways of coping were adopted by both males and females suffering from HIV or AIDS.