Avoidance as a predictor of the biological course of HIV infection over a 7-year period in gay men. |
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| Authors: | C L Mulder E M de Vroome G J van Griensven M H Antoni T G Sandfort |
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| Institution: | Helen Dowling Institute for Biopsychosocial Medicine, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. hdi@hdi.nl |
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| Abstract: | The present study prospectively investigated the relation between avoidance coping and active cognitive and behavioral coping and the progression of HIV infection over 7 years in 181 gay men. Findings revealed that for a number of medical and behavioral factors, (a) avoidance coping predicted a lower rate of decline in CD4 cells, (b) the proportional hazard (PH) attributable to avoidance of developing a syncytium-inducing HIV variant was 0.72 (95% confidence interval CI]: 0.53 - 0.99, p < .05), and (c) the PH attributable to avoidance of dropping below 200 CD4 cells/microl was 0.66 (95% CI: 0.50 - 0.89, p < .01). Avoidance coping was not related to the development of AIDS-defining clinical symptoms. Active cognitive and behavioral coping was not related to the outcome measures. |
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