Impact of counselling on depression and other behaviors amongst HIV/AIDS patients

Pages: 255-259
Sabira Khan (Department of Psychology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, U.P.)

AIDS is a chronic, life threatening condition caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The present study was carried out to evaluate the impact of counseling on depression and other behaviors manifesting psychological distress amongst HIV/AIDS patients. Beck’s depression inventory (BDI) was administered to study depression. Stages of HIV infections were also used to facilitate clinical evaluation. Twenty persons with HIV/AIDS (16 men and 4 women) participated in the study. The subjects were administered BDI before counseling, and after counseling programme was completed, pre and post- counseling scores were compared. Certain behaviors like negative emotions, body postures, eye contact, hesitant and unnatural speech, and negative attitude towards others were observed systematically by the researcher and status of these behaviors at pre and post counseling stage was compared. It was found that at the post-counseling condition scores on depression were significantly lower. Marked improvement was also seen in behavioral symptoms of psychological distress.