The purpose of this Phase I study is to explore the contexts in which improved survival among adult persons living with HIV (PLH) has affected the informal AIDS caregiving stress process, specifically among caregivers who are midlife and older women. Our data will enable us to identify junctures in the stress process where interventions aimed at enhancing the family's ability to cope with HIV should be targeted. We seek to uncover new and emerging issues, such as medication adherence, unexpected survival, and treatment failure, that will update the AIDS caregiving experience for mothers, wives, and significant female partners who traditionally provide care to family members with illnesses other than HIV. Over a three-year period, we will interview 200 caregivers, and 200 care-recipients at two points in time, separated by six months. Participants will be recruited from ethnically diverse AIDS service organizations and media sources in Los Angeles, and will be interviewed in either English or Spanish. Most previous AIDS caregiving research has focused solely on the experiences of the caregiver, thus ignoring variations in stress that may be due to shared experiences with the PLH. In addition, most previous AIDS caregiving research has focused on gay men, research appropriately reflective of the demographic trends of HIV infection earlier in the epidemic. However, as HIV has become both more prevalent and more chronic than in the past, there has been a shift in the demographic profile of persons most likely to become infected with HIV, and it is increasingly becoming a disease associated with ethnic minority status. By utilizing longitudinal multivariate analysis techniques, our research will highlight dyadic junctures in the stress process where interventions aimed at alleviating family stress should be targeted. Although the trajectory for PLH and their caregivers is now extended due to innovations in medical care, our pilot work suggests that the effects of AIDS caregiving stress are no less detrimental than in the past, and that midlife and older women play important roles in the lives of PLH and will increasingly be called upon to act as surrogate """"""""case managers"""""""" for PLH.
| Wight, R G; Beals, K P; Miller-Martinez, D et al. (2007) HIV-related traumatic stress symptoms in AIDS caregiving family dyads. AIDS Care 19:901-9 |
| Beals, K P; Wight, R G; Aneshensel, C S et al. (2006) The role of family caregivers in HIV medication adherence. AIDS Care 18:589-96 |
| Wight, Richard G; Aneshensel, Carol S; Murphy, Debra A et al. (2006) Perceived HIV stigma in AIDS caregiving dyads. Soc Sci Med 62:444-56 |
