REDUCING ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION AMONG HIV POSITIVE PATIENTS

The present study was designed to investigate the effect of cognitivebehavioural technique on anxiety and depression scores in HIV positive patients. One hundred (50 male and 50 female) HIV positive patients in age group of 21-40 years served as the subjects. Four Systems Anxiety Questionnaire (Koskal & Power, 1990) and IPAT Depression Inventory (Krug & Laughlin, 1976) were used as dependent measures. A multivariate analysis involving gender (male and female) and treatment (counselling and no counselling) as independent variables and anxiety (assessed in terms of its four components, i.e., somatic, feeling, cognitive, behavioral) and depression as dependent variables were used in the present study. The design was replicated 25 times. The counseling was found to significantly reduce anxiety and depression in the patients thereby improving their mental health. The results also indicated that the main effect of gender and the interaction between gender and counselling treatment were significant only for total anxiety and its feeling component.