The psychological and psychosocial aspects of HIV/AIDS

Why does Psychology deal with AIDS and HIV problems?
Because it studies the link between emotion and behaviour.

Why does the Psychosocial approach help those who deal with AIDS and HIV problems?
Because Psychosociology studies relationship individual-social system. Its carries out an innovative line of research compared to the traditional separation among disciplines studying individuals and disciplines studying social system. Such a separation makes difficult to understand and work on social events.

When we study problems related to AIDS and HIV, it\'s important to consider the relationship between individual and social system as interdependent.
We list some issues where is good practice to resort to psychological expertise.

Psychologists must know them if they are interested in AIDS/HIV problems, other health and social workers have to know there are some issues they could not neglect and that they can entrust an expert for adequate treatment.
They are issues related to:

• Strategies for initiatives of prevention and information.
• Decision to get tested.
• Privacy in HIV testing.
• AIDS-related events that can be psychologically relevant, as: response to an HIV positive test result, making a decision to initiate treatments, being hospitalized for the first time.
• Factors that will affect the decision to disclose or not disclose their HIV/AIDS status to others.
• Social stigmatization and its outcome.
• Acts of discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS.
• Factors that improve the compliance and the useful use of treatment.
• Management of chronic illness.

They all are situations where emotions have a strong weight on the health and on the quality of life of people affected by AIDS or HIV.