Amsterdam 2015
Menu
AIDSImpact.com
Conference Details
Authors
International Committee
Plenary Speakers
Presenting Speakers
Programme
Sessions
Scientific Committee
Acknowledgements
| Abstract #2033 - Time to talk? Disclosure and HIV | ||||
|
Session: 29.1: Time to talk? Disclosure and HIV (Parallel) on Thursday @ 11.30-13.00 in C202 Chaired by Bouko Bakker, Philippe Adam Authors: Presenting Author: Dr. Shan Qiao - Wayne State University School of Medicine, United States |
||||
| Additional Authors: | ||||
| Aim: Background: A growing literature suggests that parental HIV disclosure (i.e., HIV-positive parents tell their children about parental HIV serostatus) is a critical issue for parental mental health and medicine adherence as well as child’s psychological adjustment to parental illness. However, most of HIV-positive parents decide to conceal their HIV infection from children due to concern of stigma, lack of HIV knowledge, and fear of child’s emotional reactions. In addition of these cognitive or psychological factors, family contexts may also play an important role in parental HIV disclosure. The current study aims to explore how the communication style within family influences the parental HIV disclosure practice. | ||||
| Method / Issue: Method: The current study was based on 6-month follow-up data of a longitudinal randomized controlled trial initiated in 2013 among 796 HIV-infected parents (with at least one child aged 5-16 years) recruited from 42 HIV clinics across 12 cities/counties in Guangxi, China. A total of 688 participants completed the follow-up survey including measures on demographics, HIV-related characteristics, mental health, family relationship and HIV disclosure. Parents were categorized into two groups: parents who decided not to disclose to children (non-disclosure group) and parents who disclosed to children or at least planned to do so (disclosure group). Family communication and parental self-disclosure were assessed by existing scales, with high scores of the two measurements suggesting open and positive family communication style and parents’ frequent revealing feelings to children, respectively. We conducted multivariate analysis to examine relationships among interested variables. | ||||
| Results / Comments: Results: Around 53% of the parents had disclosed or at least planned to disclose their HIV infection to their children. They reported higher score of family communication (3.728 vs 3.518) and parental self-disclosure (.544 vs .387) compared to the non-disclosure group. Multivariate logistic regression model shows that parents who reported higher family communication score were more likely to disclose or plan to disclose their HIV serostatus to children controlling age, gender, education attainment, time since HIV diagnosis, cd4 level and residence (aOR=1.584, 95% CI=[1.174, 2.137], p=.003). Similarly, parents with higher level of self-disclosure to children were more likely to reveal or intend to reveal their HIV infection to children controlling all the background variables (aOR=4.409, 95% CI=[2.596, 7.488], p<.001). | ||||
| Discussion: Discussion: Parental HIV disclosure is a continuing communication between parents (or other family members) and children embedded in a certain family and cultural context. In some societies (e.g., China), parents may not be used to actively and openly discuss their feelings or family issues with other family members or their children even though they perceived having good relationships with them. Positive, frequent and frank communications within family may facilitate parental HIV disclosure practice, and therefore we call for incorporating trainings of communication skills into parental HIV intervention projects in future. | ||||
| Go Back | ||||