THE INFLUENCE OF HIV STATUS ON STRESS IN CLIENTS SCREENED IN KANO

This is psychophysiological exploratory study. The information of being diagnosed as HIV positive (HIV+ve) causes a great amount of stress. The index of stress in this study is blood pressure (BP) which has two measurements; systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) with high SBP and/or DBP indicating stress. The objectives of the paper were to; investigate the difference between the SBP measurements of HIV+ve participants and HIV-ve; determine the difference between the DBP measurements of HIV+ve participants and HIV-ve. Cross sectional design and convenience sampling were used. The participants comprised of 40 HIV+ve and 40 HIV-ve in Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH), Kano. The BP of each participant was measured with mercurial sphygmomanometer following post-test counselling and informing of the HIV test result. The statistics used was Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA). The results showed that there was no significant difference between the SBP measurements of HIV+ve and HIV-ve participants, F= 2.601, P > .05. Also, there was no significant difference between DBP measurements of HIV+ve and HIV-ve, F=.135, P > .05. The post hoc findings showed that eight HIV/AIDS worried well in the HIV-ve participants measured high SBP and also four worried well measured high DBP. The therapeutic effect of exposure to stressful event, the worried well, pre and post HIV test counselling might be reasons of the not significant differences in the participants. Clinical psychologist should be employed to give psychotherapy to clients that tested HIV+ve with high SBP and/or DBP and to worried well.