Social Support, Quality of Life and Suicidal Ideation among People Living with HIV/AIDS in ART Center, Jammu

The cardinal aim of this study was to examine the level of social support, quality of life,and suicidal ideation among people living with HIV/AIDS. Total participants was 300 (n=300) AIDS patients, both males and females selected through purposive sampling technique. Enriched Social Support Inventory by Mitchell et al. (2003) Quality of Life Scale by Sharma and Nasreen (2014) and Suicidal Ideation Scale by Sisodia and Bhatnagar (2011) was used for measurement of social support, quality of life, and suicidal ideation among participants. Data was analyzed through Mean, t-test, one way ANOVA and Pearson Correlation by using SPSS 20.0 version. The results showed that majority of(80.33%) patients have low level of social support,(25%) moderate level of quality of life, and (73.33%) average level of suicidal ideations respectively. Finding also revealed that male, married and patients from joint famines have higher social support, and quality of life than female, unmarried and patients from nuclear families. Whereas, female, unmarried and patients from nuclear families have high suicidal ideations than male, married and patients from joint families respectively. Further the findings also confirmed that age, occupation and duration of illness has their influence on social support, quality of life, and on suicidal ideation. Simultaneously the results divulge that social support is positively significant correlated with quality of life (.654), but negatively correlated with suicidal Ideation (-.901). Negative significant correlation was found between quality of life and suicidal Ideation (-.747). Demographical variables viz gender, marital status, family type, age, occupation and duration of illness were significantly correlated with social support quality of life and suicidal ideation respectively.