General and AIDS-Specific Stress, Coping, and Psychological Distress in the Biracial Coping & Change Study Cohort of Gay Men

Abstract

The emotional well-being of persons living with HIV/AIDS is thought to be affected by a number of factors, including stage of disease progression and presence of physical symptoms, social support, stressors (both general and AIDS-specific), appraisals of control over stressful situations, and coping behaviors. The literature has been unclear regarding the role that coping mechanisms play in mediating or buffering the effects of stressors, and continued efforts to clarify the role of coping are important in order to inform clinical interventions. The current study was based on the responses of 297 White and African-American gay men with and without HIV/AIDS participating in the Chicago Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS) and Coping & Change Study (C&CS) from 1992 to 1994. We found that the amount of detachment- versus involvement-oriented coping strategies used to deal with stressors was unrelated to the level of reported depressed mood and AIDS-specific distress, except among the most severely depressed men (upper 15%), for whom greater reliance on involvement coping strategies was associated with decreased depression. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.