Depression during the COVID‐19 pandemic among people living with HIV: Are low HIV/AIDS stigma and high perceived emotional support protective resources?

Abstract

This study has two objectives: first, to examine changes in depressive symptoms among people living with HIV (PLWH) during the COVID‐19 pandemic and, second, to verify the role of HIV/AIDS stigma and perceived emotional support (PES) in the heterogeneity of these changes. The participants were 392 people with a medical diagnosis of HIV who have undergone antiretroviral therapy. Depression was measured at three time points with 6‐month intervals using the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES‐D). PES was evaluated with the Berlin Social Support Scales, and HIV/AIDS‐related stigma was assessed with the Berger HIV Stigma Scale. Latent growth class modelling identified four trajectories of depression over the study period: three stable (very high, high, and very low) and one increasing. Both the very high and high stable trajectories had baseline values above the CES‐D cut‐off point for depression, suggesting that 57.6% of the sample was likely to be diagnosed with depression. After controlling for sociodemographic and clinical variables, stigma and PES were found to be significant covariates of the obtained trajectories; however, they did not protect against an increase in depression symptoms. There was no overall increase in depression symptoms among the PLWH participants during the pandemic, but this change in depression symptoms was heterogeneous. We observed the potential development of depression in initially well‐functioning individuals despite their personal resources differing only slightly from those who remained resilient.

The association of changes in depression severity after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and viral nonsuppression among people with HIV

“…Despite the many psychosocial, economic, and health challenges posed by the pandemic, depression severity for most (69%) of the PWH in this study remained unchanged during the pandemic, which is comparable to data in a study by Rzeszutek and Gruszczyn ´ska [24] in which depression severity remained unchanged for 75% of PWH attending the outpatient clinic of an infectious disease hospital in Poland. These results align with recent research indicating that increased depression symptoms associated with the COVID pandemic were more evident during the early phases of the pandemic, with most…”