HIV-positive persons

This study was a secondary analysis or data collected by Freeman, E., Ruppenthal, B., and Flinders, R. entitled "Meditation on a Passage and Repetition of a Mantram to Enhance Self-Care of Persons with HIV Infection" (1992). Selected data were re-analyzed considering the Self-Care Deficit Nursing Theory (Orem, 1995). Self-care consisted of daily repetition of an inspirational passage and mantra, which served as the interventions for the primary study. The primary researchers noted that Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) scores rose significantly after the intervention. Thus, secondary analysis focused on the relationships of the basic conditioning factors (BCF) to the global and factor scores on the BSI before and after the intervention of meditation. Secondary analysis revealed a difference in scores between entry and exit on the Global Severity Index (GSI) of the BSI in reference to the basic conditioning factor of age. By the end of the 10 weeks of meditation, age was no longer a factor in causing GSI scores to increase.

Resource allocation theory, Polich (2007) suggests cortical measures may attenuate when processing demands increase. Thirteen HIV-negative women (M = 36.5) and 15 HIV-positive women (M = 36.1) infected were instructed to view neutral and negative IAPS images and then to detect rare tones in a subsequent auditory oddball task. A 2 x 2 ANOVA for the auditory P3 did not indicate a main effect for picture valence however an interaction was found between picture valence and serostatus at location Fz, F(1,24) = 18.99, p<.001. During the visual ERP sequence an interaction between valence and serostatus was found at the Pz location, F(1,24) = 18.99, p<.001, meaning the late positive potential (LPP) was not modulated between viewing neutral and negative images in HIV-positive women. These findings suggest that the manifestation of HIV in women may alter the neural processing of emotions, though not to the detriment of a subsequent cognitive task.