Assessing psychological symptom networks related to HIV-positive duration among people living with HIV: a network analysis

ABSTRACT

This study aims to explore and visualize relationships among multiple psychological symptoms among people living with HIV (PLWH) with different HIV-positive durations and to compare centrality indices and densities of psychological symptom networks. We used subsets of data collected from five designated HIV/AIDS hospitals in China. Networks were constructed among 16 psychological symptoms. Centrality properties, including strength and closeness, were adopted to describe relationships among symptoms. The results showed that PLWH with longer HIV-positive durations had denser emotional networks, which indicated that they had more emotional neuroticism than their newly diagnosed counterparts. Sadness, self-abasement, and self-loathing were the most central psychological symptoms across different HIV-positive durations. Our study suggests the need to provide psychosocial support services targeting PLWH according to changing symptom severity and neuroticism trajectories. Interventions should focus on increasing empathy for PLWH and enhancing the ability to consider the situation from different perspectives to avoid the development of neuroticism in long-term survivors.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychological symptom network
• symptom management
• HIV/AIDS
• HIV-positive duration

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Science Project (20YJCZH254), Shanghai Soft Science Research Program (20692190300), Shanghai Sailing Program (20YF1401800), and China Medical Board Open Competition Program (#20-372). The funders had no involvement in or influence on this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the School of Nursing, Fudan University (IRB#TYSA2016-3-1).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by China Medical Board Open Competition Program: [Grant Number #20-372]; Shanghai Soft Science Research Program: [Grant Number 20692190300]; The Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Science Project: [Grant Number 20YJCZH254]; Shanghai Sailing Program: [Grant Number 20YF1401800].