Aspects that influence the self-care of patients living with human immunodeficiency virus.
Rúbia Aguiar Alencar, Ana Beatriz Henrique Parenti, Camila de Carvalho Lopes and 2 others
PMID 30916226WHAT IT FOUND
Patients living with HIV who needed to hide their diagnosis scored lower on daily self-care.
Older patients had lower self-care related to illness, while those with a permanent partner had higher. Ask about hiding the diagnosis, support, and age in nursing consultations.
Key findings
01The mean universal self-care score was 6.3 points on a 12-point scale.
02Needing to hide the diagnosis was associated with lower universal self-care in the adjusted model (β = -0.72, p < 0.031).
03Increasing age was associated with lower health-deviation self-care (OR = 0.93, p < 0.003), while having a permanent partner was associated with higher health-deviation self-care (OR = 3.46, p < 0.015).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The sample came from one specialized outpatient clinic and consisted of people already attending nursing consultations, so it likely represents patients who already engage in self-care and may not apply to people who do not attend clinic. The study is cross-sectional, so it can show associations but cannot show that stigma, age, partnership, or family relationships cause better or worse self-care. Self-care was measured by patient-reported yes/no questions from an instrument constructed for the study, not by an external validated measure. Many variables were tested and then narrowed to a parsimonious model, which increases the chance that some significant findings reflect chance or model selection. The paper gives different results for change in sexual life and developmental self-care in the text and in the table, so that finding is uncertain.
Declared interests
The study was supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Brazil, grant #447511/2014-9. The supplied text does not state any author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that reducing the need to hide the diagnosis, changing age, or finding a partner will improve self-care. This study only found associations in a convenience sample of patients already attending an HIV outpatient nursing consultation.