The overall objectives of the proposed research are (1) to understand how individuals respond to the psychological, social, and physical stresses of having the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), or AIDS-related complex (ARC); and (2) how these responses may, in turn, affect subsequent medical status/outcome and be related to immunologic functioning.
The first aim will be accomplished by continuing to follow a sample of 75 persons with AIDS and 150 persons with ARC who were initially studied through the grant for which this is a renewal application, """"""""A Longitudinal Psychosocial Study of AIDS Patients."""""""" The same psychosocial interview protocol and self-report package developed for the initial study will be administered, extending the 3, 6, and 12 month follow-ups to 18, 24, and 30 month follow-ups. Questions will be added relative to subjects' understanding of and attitudes toward new treatments and tests (e.g., for HTLV-III).
The second aim i s to focus systematically on psychoimmunologic relationships in a new sample of 100 persons with ARC, to be studied prospectively, every 6 months, over a 2-3 year period. Psychosocial measures from the initial study will be reduced to those found in the literature to be related to immunologic status and/or to progression of other immunologically-mediated diseases. Immunologic, psychosocial, and medical status/outcome variables will be combined into a single data set. The study's longitudinal perspective will allow the investigation of such questions as (1) how specific psychosocial variables may be related to specific aspects of immune function, (2) whether certain psychosocial variables are associated with the development of AIDS in persons with ARC, and whether these variables are related to immune measures that predict subsequent medical status/outcome, (3) whether psychosocial variables may discriminate sub-groups of persons with ARC, e.g., those with or without ARC symptoms in the presence of laboratory signs, and (4) whether psychosocial variables may differentiate subjects who have HTLV-III antibody in the absence of virus from asymptomatic """"""""carriers.""""""""
| Moulton, J M; Stempel, R R; Bacchetti, P et al. (1991) Results of a one year longitudinal study of HIV antibody test notification from the San Francisco General Hospital cohort. J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr 4:787-94 |
| Temoshok, L (1988) Psychoimmunology and AIDS. Adv Biochem Psychopharmacol 44:187-97 |
| Solomon, G F; Temoshok, L; O'Leary, A et al. (1987) An intensive psychoimmunologic study of long-surviving persons with AIDS. Pilot work, background studies, hypotheses, and methods. Ann N Y Acad Sci 496:647-55 |
