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Positive and Negative Self-Conscious Emotion and Transmission Risk Following HIV Diagnosis

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Abstract

While negative emotions are associated with risk behaviors and risk avoidance among people with HIV, emerging evidence indicates that negative self-conscious emotions, those evoked by self-reflection or self-evaluation (e.g., shame, guilt, and embarrassment), may differentially influence health-risk behaviors by producing avoidance or, conversely, pro-social behaviors. Positive emotions are associated with beneficial health behaviors, and may account for inconsistent findings related to negative self-conscious emotions. Using multinomial logistic regression, we tested whether positive emotion moderated the relationships between negative emotion and negative self-conscious emotions and level of condomless sex risk: (1) seroconcordant; (2) serodiscordant with undetectable viral load; and (3) serodiscordant with detectable viral load [potentially amplified transmission (PAT)] among people recently diagnosed with HIV (n = 276). While positive emotion did not moderate the relationship between negative emotion and condomless sex, it did moderate the relationship between negative self-conscious emotion and PAT (AOR = 0.60; 95% CI 0.41, 0.87); high negative self-conscious and high positive emotion were associated with lower PAT risk. Acknowledgment of both positive and negative self-conscious emotion may reduce transmission risk behavior among people with HIV.

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Acknowledgements

The data used in this manuscript are taken from two studies of people recently diagnosed with HIV: an observational study to assess stress and coping (R01MH068170) and a clinical trial assessing a positive affect intervention (R01MH084723). This work was also supported by T32AT003997, K24MH093225, and K24 AT007827.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, One Bowdoin Square, 7th Floor, Boston, MA, USA

    Abigail W. Batchelder

  2. Department of Medicine, Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Abigail W. Batchelder, Michael Acree, Frederick M. Hecht & Judith Tedlie Moskowitz

  3. Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Prevention Science & Community Health, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA

    Adam W. Carrico

  4. Department of Medical School Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine, Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Judith Tedlie Moskowitz

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  1. Abigail W. Batchelder
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  2. Adam W. Carrico
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  3. Michael Acree
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  4. Frederick M. Hecht
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Correspondence to Abigail W. Batchelder.

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Batchelder, A.W., Carrico, A.W., Acree, M. et al. Positive and Negative Self-Conscious Emotion and Transmission Risk Following HIV Diagnosis. AIDS Behav 22, 1496–1502 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-017-1943-y

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