Fate control and well-being in Chinese rural people living with HIV: mediation effect of resilience

ABSTRACT

Fate control has been often misconceptualized as a superstitious belief and overlooked in health psychology. It is not known how this cultural belief might impact the well-being of Chinese people living with HIV. This study examined the protective role of fate control for well-being and the potential mediation effect of resilience. Participants in this study were rural patients who contracted HIV via commercial blood donation. In this cross-sectional survey, 250 participants completed measures of fate control, well-being, and resilience. The results showed that fate control and resilience were positively associated with well-being. Resilience mediated the association between fate control and well-being. Our findings provide insight into the adaptive function of fate control as a cognitive defensive mechanism and highlight the need to incorporate this cultural belief in developing culturally sensitive intervention programs for resilience enhancement tailored for this understudied population infected with HIV living in rural China.

KEYWORDS:

• Fate control
• well-being
• resilience
• Chinese
• HIV

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCiD

Nancy Xiaonan Yu http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6371-2684

Amy Y. M. Chow http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4126-7815

Celia H. Y. Chan http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4800-716X

Cecilia L. W. Chan http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4331-5427

Additional information

Funding

The work described in this paper was partially supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China [Project No. CityU 21402714]. The sponsor had no further role in study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data, in the writing of the report, and in the decision to submit the paper for publication.