Depression among people living with HIV infection: A gender based study

Pages: 319-324
Anjana Bhattacharjee and Sukriti Banda (Department of Psychology, Tripura University, Tripura)

Depression, the silent killer has become one of the alarming crises in today’s fast paced society. Depression may occur due to existence of different psychological or physiological illness as well as it can get induced from the medications prescribed for those illnesses. Depression is commonly associated with HIV/AIDS. The main objective of the present study was to examine whether level of depression differs according to biological sex or not? Hence the present study was carried out among male (N=28) and female (N=39) HIV positive persons and all of them (N=67) were selected purposively from ART centre, G.B.P Hospital, Agartala, the capital of Tripura. All of them belonged to the age group of 14 to 60 years and data were collected from them through face to face interview technique. For data collection, Basic Information Schedule and Back Depression Inventory were used. The findings indicated no gender differences among the HIV infected persons in regard to their level of depression.