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“Please Don’t Make Me Ask for Help”: Implicit Social Support and Mental Health in Chinese Individuals Living with HIV

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Abstract

China faces a growing HIV epidemic; psychosocial needs of HIV-positive individuals remain largely unaddressed. Research is needed to consider the gap between need for mental healthcare and lack of sufficiently trained professionals, in a culturally acceptable manner. This study assessed explicit and implicit forms of social support and mental health symptoms in 120 HIV-positive Chinese. Explicit social support refers to interactions involving active disclosure and discussion of problems and request for assistance, whereas implicit social support refers to the emotional comfort one obtains from social networks without disclosing problems. We hypothesized and found using multiple linear regression, that after controlling for demographics, only implicit, but not explicit social support positively predicted mental health. Future research is warranted on the effects of utilizing implicit social support to bolster mental health, which has the potential to circumvent the issues of both high stigma and low professional resources in this population.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the participants and providers at Ditan Hospital for their assistance with the Project. Additionally, we would like to thank Kimberly M. Nelson, Rick Cruz, Jennifer Wang, Karen Pang, Laura Brady, and Karen Chang for their revisions on earlier drafts of the manuscript. Funding for this research was provided by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH: 1F31MH099925-01, Yang, PI; MH074364, Simoni, PI;), and the University of Washington Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), an NIH-funded Program [P30AI27757].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Joyce P. Yang, Janxin Leu & Jane M. Simoni

  2. School of Nursing, Yale University, Orange, CT, USA

    Wei Ti Chen

  3. School of Social Work, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Cheng-Shi Shiu

  4. Beijing Ditan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Hongxin Zhao

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  1. Joyce P. Yang
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  2. Janxin Leu
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  3. Jane M. Simoni
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  4. Wei Ti Chen
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  5. Cheng-Shi Shiu
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Correspondence to Joyce P. Yang.

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Yang, J.P., Leu, J., Simoni, J.M. et al. “Please Don’t Make Me Ask for Help”: Implicit Social Support and Mental Health in Chinese Individuals Living with HIV. AIDS Behav 19, 1501–1509 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-015-1041-y

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