| Learning Objective #1: Identify depression rates among HIV-positive, pregnant Thai women | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Identify factors affecting depression among HIV-positive, pregnant Thai women |
Subjects and Method: This correlational, cross-sectional study recruited 90 HIV-positive, pregnant women at the prenatal clinics of four different hospitals in Thailand. Subjects completed a questionnaire packet that had been translated into Thai with back translation. The Center for Epidemiology Studies Depression Scale (Alpha=.90), Self-Coherence Scale (Alpha=.77), and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Alpha=.87) were used to measure depression, self-coherence, and social support, respectively. Hierarchical multiple regression was applied to control for covariates (marital status, education, family income, gravida, intention of pregnancy, duration of HIV infection, HIV-related symptoms). Independent variables included social support, self-coherence, meditation (meditation vs. no meditation), disclosure of subject's HIV status (disclose vs. not disclose), and partner's HIV status (positive, negative, or unknown).
Results: All subjects were Buddhist. Most were housewives (52.2%). Their age ranged from 18 to 41 years old. Ninety percent were living with partner. Their average income was $US 3,720 annually. Nearly 56% intended to get pregnant. Approximately, 42% of the women had known their HIV status for less than 3 months, and 28.9% for over a year. Regarding their partner's HIV status, 55.6% were unknown, 31.1 % were positive, and 12.2% were negative. About 64% of the women disclosed their HIV status to someone and mostly to their partners (50%). When the cut-off score of 23 or greater was applied, 57.8% were significantly depressed. Self-coherence, social support, and meditation were negatively correlated with depression (Beta= -.69, -.41, and -.33, respectively). The overall model yielded 50.1% of the explained variance (F=6.86, p-value <.001).
Conclusion: Correlates of depression were low social support, low self-coherence, and no meditation. Nurses should incorporate social support, self-coherence, and meditation into their interventions in order to intervene depression among this group of population.