Psychological stress among asymptomatic acute hiv group, clinically symptomatic condition group and aids indicator condition group

Clinicians who treat people with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) disease have long accepted the notion that stress affects immune function. The stress is the common Psychological disturbance among HIV infected people. Stress varies across stages of disease progression from HIV to AIDS. This article summarizes the large body of evidence examining whether perceived stress varies across Asymptomatic Acute HIV condition, Clinically Symptomatic Condition and AIDS Indicator Condition. A cross sectional research design is employed and Persons were classified as having asymptomatic, clinically symptomatic and AIDS according to case definitions established by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. The data is obtained from 480 participants and the level of perceived stress as influenced by the HIV/AIDS disease progression is analyzed. A one way ANOVA,F results showed that Asymptomatic acute HIV condition, Clinically symptomatic HIV condition and AIDS indicator groups are significantly differ in the level of perceived stress and Tukey’s HSD post-hoc analysis indicated that Clinically symptomatic acute HIV condition group had exhibited statistically significant higher level of perceived stress than asymptomatic acute HIV condition group and significantly lower level of stress compared to AIDS indicator group.Implications of the findings are discussed in the context of psychological factors and services in India.