Potential correlates of self-care and symptom distress in homosexual/bisexual men who are HIV seropositive.

: Although treatment of HIV infections is possible, anecdotal data and research suggest that infected homosexual and bisexual men are developing sets of HIV-specific self-care behaviors that they believe will maintain their health or delay progressive disease. However, little is known about frequent use of HIV self-care in relationship to symptom distress or other factors commonly assessed by nurses. These deficits limit the ability of healthcare providers to intervene appropriately. Consequently, the following repeated-measures study retrospectively examined correlates of HIV self-care in 162 outpatients who were attending a major healthcare facility in San Francisco, CA. Standard and HIV-specific instruments created for the study were used in data collection. Results suggest that the men increased their use of 35 of 81 HIV self-care behaviors once they became aware of being HIV seropositive (p less than 0.001). Frequent use of HIV self-care behaviors was related to several variables, including previous patterns of self-care (p less than 0.001), and AIDS diagnosis (p less than 0.01), and a locus of control (LOC) indicator (e.g., the statement "What happens to me is beyond my control") (p less than 0.001). Symptom distress also was related to several variables, including selected LOC and quality-of-life (QOL) indicators, mood states, and recent diagnosis of selected AIDS-related diseases (p less than 0.01). Collectively, these results suggest that taking self-care and selected psychosocial histories will allow nurses to identify ambulatory patients with HIV infections who need intensive care.