The objective of the proposed research study was to answer the following research questions: Do clients in their respectful stages of diagnosis place more emphasis on certain psychological issues than others? And if so, can we identify the specific psychological issues that were considered to be most significant and unique across the stages of the HIV/AIDS continuum? To test these research questions, 37 homosexual men falling in three specific stages of the infection were surveyed. These three stages included: (1) HIV+ asymptomatic, (2) HIV+ chronic symptomatic, and (3) AIDS diagnosis. The HIV/AIDS Client Concern (HACC) questionnaire was developed to assess the significance clients placed on certain psychological issues and, was administered to all the subjects. The statistical analyses revealed that clients' level of diagnosis influenced how much emphasis they placed on what they considered to be significant psychological issues. More specifically, clients in the asymptotic group reported a higher concern with issues surrounding confidentiality of their HIV/AIDS status than the AIDS diagnosis group. The chronic symptomatic group, on the other hand, was significantly more concerned with issues regarding feelings of guilt/shame, shock, depression, fear, loneliness, and anxiety of infecting other people through casual contact than the other groups. In addition, the AIDS diagnosis group was most concerned with issues surrounding the planning of their future care in comparison with the asymptomatic group. A more detailed analysis of each questions' content and its significance as well as the implications such results have for both researchers and practitioners alike will be discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.23236 |
| Date | January 1995 |
| Creators | Paraskevopoulos, Angelo |
| Contributors | Stalikas, A. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001475327, proquestno: MM07951, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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