Interdependence of Stress Processes Among African American Family Members: Influence of HIV Serostatus and a New Infant

Abstract

This study makes a theoretical contribution to stress process research by using a systemic approach to contextualize individual outcomes within the framework of other family members' experience. Utilizing a mixed model approach, indicators of the stress process of urban low-income HIV + African American recent mothers were found to affect the psychological distress and perceived adequacy of coping of multiple other family members. These relationships were found to be strongest proximal to birth and to be exacerbated by HIV infection. Social support to the mother was found to have differential effects depending on whether it was from the immediate family or outside sources. HIV infection of the recent mother was found to affect family members both through relationships of the mother's stress process and through their own coping responses. KeywordsStress process; Systemic process; Family; HIV; Multi-level data; Social support; Coping responses A growing movement in psychology is concerned with the influence of context on human functioning (Szapocznik and Kurtines, 1993). One of the most important units of social context is the family (Bronfenbrenner, 1986). The current study investigated the influence of HIV + African American women who had recently given birth, on their family members. The study demonstrates a strategy to represent family systemic influences using individual level data. Multi-level modeling is used to integrate individual information on family members in a way that permits the identification of the effect of a recent mother's experience on her family members' psychological outcomes.This study makes a theoretical contribution to stress process research by using a systemic approach to contextualize individual outcomes within the framework of other family members' experience. A system comprises parts that are interdependent or interrelated (Szapocznik and Kurtines, 1989). In human systems, interdependence is clear with persons being responsive to each other's behaviors. A major aspect of a human system is the interactive nature of behaviors and experiences of its members. That is, each individual's experience is quite different from what it would be if it were possible for the individual to live in isolation. The family is one type of system in which individual members of the system are clearly interdependent and interrelated.The current study focused on HIV + urban low-income African American women and their families because this population has extremely high rates of HIV infection, well beyond their * Corresponding author. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptPsychol Health. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2006 April 11. Published in final edited form as:Psychol Health. 2002 ; 17(3): 339-363. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscriptproportion in the general population (CDC, 1999). Women at highest risk, like the women in the current study, are predominately of childbearing age (Miles, et al., 1997), with a majority having children under the age of 18 (Kot...

Religious coping, stigma, and psychological functioning among HIV-positive African American women

“…The two religious coping items were removed from analysis so as not to overlap with a separate measure of religious coping. Although the Brief COPE was not specifically designed to yield active, support, and avoidant coping subscales, these scales have often been generated in research on HIV-positive African American women (Feaster & Szapocznik, 2002;Prado et al, 2004), and thus average scores of items on these three subscales were used in the present study. The Brief COPE has shown adequate test-retest reliability, and convergent and divergent validity (Carver, 1997;Cooper, Katona, & Livingston, 2008).…”

Stress processes in HIV-positive African American mothers: Moderating effects of drug abuse history

“…These past research studies have investigated the stress process model and a host of psychosocial variables and processes including how the stress process of the recent HIV-positive African American mothers affected all of her family members (see Feaster & Szapocznik, 2002) and the role of religious involvement within a stress process framework among HIV-positive African American mothers (see Prado et al, 2004). The current study extends and builds on the prior research programs.…”

“…The Brief Cope generated three global constructs of coping, active, support, and avoidant coping scales. Similar composites have been used in research on HIV-seropositive persons (Blaney et al, 1997;Feaster et al, 2000;Feaster & Szapocznik, 2002;Goodkin et al, 1992;Prado et al, 2004). Active coping includes items measuring positive reframing, planning, and taking action.…”

“…Resources such as family, social support, and perceived control are considered to have positive effects on psychosocial outcomes (Feaster & Szapocznik, 2002). Resources are dispositions and beliefs (perceived control) or individuals and groups on which individuals can draw for help.…”

“…Coping responses were measured using the Brief Cope (Carver, 1997) plus 11 additional items developed for use with this population (see Feaster & Szapocznik, 2002). The Brief Cope generated three global constructs of coping, active, support, and avoidant coping scales.…”