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Relationships Among Covid-19 Phobia, Health Anxiety, and Social Relations in Women Living With Hiv in Iran: A Path Analysis Publisher Pubmed



Aliverdi F1 ; Jozani ZB2 ; Ghavidel N3 ; Qorbani M4, 5 ; Khonsari NM4 ; Mohamadi F6 ; Mohraz M7 ; Mahmoodi Z3
Authors
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Authors Affiliations
  1. 1. Student Research Committee, Alborz University of Medical Sciences, Karaj, Iran
  2. 2. Department of Reproductive Health and Midwifery, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
  3. 3. Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Alborz University of Medical Sciences, Karaj, Iran
  4. 4. Non-Communicable Diseases Research Center, Alborz University of Medical Sciences, Karaj, Iran
  5. 5. Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Center, Endocrinology and Metabolism Clinical Sciences Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
  6. 6. Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
  7. 7. Iranian Research Center for HIV/ AIDS, Iranian Institute for Reduction of High-Risk Behaviors, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Source: PLoS ONE Published:2022


Abstract

Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences have caused fear and anxiety worldwide and imposed a significant physical and psychological burden on people, especially women living with HIV (WLHIV). However, WLHIV were not studied as well as others during the pandemic. Hence, this study aimed to determine the relationships between COVID-19 phobia, health anxiety, and social relations in WLHIV. Materials and methods This cross-sectional study enrolled 300 WLHIV who had records at the Iranian Research Center for HIV/AIDS of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Data were collected using sociodemographic questionnaire, the fear of COVID-19 scale, the social relations questionnaire, the socioeconomic status scale and the health anxiety inventory. Path-analysis was used to assess the direct and indirct associations between variables. Results Based on the path analysis, among variables that had significant causal relationships with social relations, socioeconomic status (β = -0.14) showed the greatest negative relationship, and health anxiety (β = 0.11) had the strongest positive relationship on the direct path. On the indirect path, fear of COVID-19 (β = 0.049) displayed the greatest positive relationship. The level of education (β = 0.29) was the only variable showing a significant positive relationship with social relations on both direct and indirect paths. Conclusion Our result showed that increased fear and health anxiety related to a higher social relations score in WLHIV. Hence, due to their vulnerability, these people require more support and education to adhere to health protocols in future pandemics and similar situations. © 2022 Aliverdi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.