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Cultural Adaptation of the Brief COPE for Persons Living with HIV/AIDS in Southern India

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Abstract

Physical and psychological stressors of HIV infection demand adequate coping responses from persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) and coping strategies may vary by cultural context. The Brief COPE is a well validated scale that has been used extensively to assess coping with cancer, depression, and HIV infection in other settings, but never in India. In this study we translated and validated the 28 item Brief COPE among 299 PLHA in South India, assessing reliability, validity, and cultural appropriateness. Although the original scale demonstrated acceptable internal consistency (alpha = 0.70) and good convergent validity with depression, the test–retest reliability was marginal (test–retest = 0.6) and the original factor structure demonstrated poor fit in a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). An exploratory factor analysis yielded a 16 item scale with five factors (active planning, social support, avoidant emotions, substance use, religion). A second CFA demonstrated good model fit and acceptable reliability (alpha = 0.61) of the adapted scale.

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Acknowledgments

This work was made possible by a grant from the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Nursing Research (NIH/NINR R21NR11279) and support from the University of Washington Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), funded by the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIH/NIAID AI027757).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Samarth, Chennai, India

    Rani Mohanraj & Shuba Kumar

  2. Christian Medical College, Vellore, India

    Visalakshi Jeyaseelan & Thenmozhi Mani

  3. The Department of Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Deepa Rao, Katherine R. Murray & Lisa E. Manhart

  4. The Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, 325 9th Avenue, Box 359931, Seattle, WA, 98104, USA

    Lisa E. Manhart

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  1. Rani Mohanraj
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Correspondence to Lisa E. Manhart.

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Mohanraj, R., Jeyaseelan, V., Kumar, S. et al. Cultural Adaptation of the Brief COPE for Persons Living with HIV/AIDS in Southern India. AIDS Behav 19, 341–351 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-014-0872-2

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