Cross-Culture Validation of the HIV/AIDS Stress Scale: The Development of a Revised Chinese Version

• Published in: PloS one 2016-04, Vol.11 (4), p.e0152990-e0152990
• Main Authors: Niu, Lu, Qiu, Yangyang, Luo, Dan, Chen, Xi, Wang, Min, Pakenham, Kenneth I, Zhang, Xixing, Huang, Zhulin, Xiao, Shuiyuan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acquired immune deficiency syndrome; Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome - epidemiology; Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome - psychology; Adolescent; Adult; Aged; AIDS; Analysis; Anxiety; Asian Continental Ancestry Group - psychology; Biology and Life Sciences; China - epidemiology; Coping; Cross-Cultural Comparison; Cross-Sectional Studies; Culture; Disease control; Disease prevention; Female; HIV; HIV Infections - epidemiology; HIV Infections - psychology; Hospitals; Human immunodeficiency virus; Humans; Male; Medical diagnosis; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; Mental disorders; Middle Aged; People and Places; Population Surveillance; Primary care; Psychological aspects; Public health; Reproducibility of Results; Risk Factors; Social interactions; Social Sciences; Stigma; Stress; Stress (Psychology); Stress, Psychological; Stresses; Suicides & suicide attempts; Surveys and Questionnaires; Validity; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0152990

Being HIV-infected is a stressful experience for many individuals. To assess HIV-related stress in the Chinese context, a measure with satisfied psychometric properties is yet underdeveloped. This study aimed to examine the psychometric characteristics of a simplified Chinese version of the HIV/AIDS Stress Scale (SS-HIV) among people living with HIV/AIDS in central China. A total of 667 people living with HIV (92% were male) were recruited from March 1st 2014 to August 31th 2015 by consecutive sampling. A standard questionnaire package containing the Chinese HIV/AIDS Stress Scale (CSS-HIV), the Chinese Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), and the Chinese Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) were administered to all participants, and 38 of the participants were selected randomly to be re-tested in four weeks after the initial testing. Our data supported that a revised 17-item CSS-HIV had adequate psychometric properties. It consisted of 3 factors: emotional stress (6 items), social stress (6 items) and instrumental stress (5 items). The overall Cronbach's α was 0.906, and the test-retest reliability coefficient was 0.832. The revised CSS-HIV was significantly correlated with the number of HIV-related symptoms, as well as scores on the PHQ-9 and GAD-7, indicating acceptable concurrent validity. The 17-item Chinese version of the SS-HIV has potential research and clinical utility in identifying important stressors among the Chinese HIV-infected population and in understanding the effects of stress on adjustment to HIV.