Self-care strategies and sources of information for HIV/AIDS symptom management.
BACKGROUND
Self-care is one of the challenges that people with HIV/AIDS face in the long-term symptom management of the disease.


OBJECTIVE
To identify the category schemes of self-care strategies and sources of information for symptom management reported by HIV-positive individuals.


METHODS
A secondary analysis was conducted in a large dataset of an HIV/AIDS symptom management study. Narrative data of symptom self-care management strategies and sources of information for symptom management were analyzed by a content analysis technique to identify category schemes. The 359 participants in the study reported 776 symptom self-care strategies and 526 sources of information for these strategies.


RESULTS
The symptom self-care management strategies were summarized into eight categories: medications (23.45%), self-comforting (15.21%), complementary treatments (14.69%), daily thoughts and activities (12.89%), diet changing (10.95%), help seeking (9.28%), spiritual care (6.83%), and exercise (6.70%). There were four categories of information sources: self (34.41%), healthcare provider (27.95%), personal network (19.20%), and community (18.44%). The category schemes had moderate to high interrater reliability (Cohen's kappa:.49-1.00 for self-care strategy and .70-.87 for source of information). Most of the self-care strategies were perceived as helpful. Except for complementary treatments, self-care strategies were used differently among people with the six most frequently occurring symptoms (chi2 [5, n = 286] = 28.53-79.89).


CONCLUSIONS
The eight categories of self-care strategies identified in this study showed that people with HIV/AIDS not only seek the help of medications, but also follow a wide array of other self-developed or self-taught nonpharmaceutical strategies to allay their symptoms.
Chou
Fang-Yu
FY
Office of Research, School of Nursing, University of California, San Francisco, USA. Fang-yu.Chou@nursing.ucsf.edu
Holzemer
William L
WL
Portillo
Carmen J
CJ
Slaughter
Rob
R
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000150:complications / Q000628:therapy*; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009664:Norway; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D012648:Self Care / Q000379:methods*; D014481:United States