RESUMO
OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of neurocognitive and emotional distress and immune system dysfunction on quality of life in women with HIV. METHODS: Thirty-six HIV-seropositive women were administered measures of mood status (Profile of Mood States), quality of life (Multidimensional Quality of Life Questionnaire for Persons with HIV) and cognitive function. CD4 cell counts were obtained as an indicator of immune system status. RESULTS: Regression analyses revealed that independent of severity of emotional distress, neurocognitive deficits on measures of executive control and speed of information processing were associated with reduced quality of life. Emotional status also was associated with quality of life and together with neurocognitive performance accounted for most of the variance associated with quality of life. Reduced CD4 cell count was significantly associated with neurocognitive deficits, but not severity of emotional distress or quality of life. CONCLUSIONS: Quality of life among women who are infected with HIV is strongly influenced by both neurocognitive and emotional status, as women with the greatest neurocognitive impairment and emotional distress report the poorest quality of life.
Assuntos
Infecções por HIV/psicologia , Adulto , Afeto , Contagem de Linfócito CD4 , Cognição , Transtornos Cognitivos/etiologia , Feminino , Infecções por HIV/complicações , Infecções por HIV/imunologia , HIV-1 , Humanos , Qualidade de Vida , Estresse Psicológico/etiologiaRESUMO
The process of psychological adjustment to breast cancer was examined at diagnosis and at 3- and 6-month follow-ups in a sample of 80 women with Stage I-Stage IV breast cancer. At diagnosis, symptoms of anxiety/depression were predicted by low dispositional optimism, and this path was partially mediated by use of emotion-focused disengagement coping. Younger age also was predictive of anxiety/depression symptoms at time of diagnosis, and this relationship was fully mediated by magnitude of intrusive thoughts. At 3 months, changes in anxiety/depression symptoms were predicted only by intrusive thoughts. At 6 months, low dispositional optimism reemerged as a significant predictor of changes in anxiety/depression and again was partially mediated by the use of emotion-focused disengagement coping. Independent effects for problem-focused engagement and disengagement and emotion-focused engagement coping were also found at 6 months. Implications of these data for psychosocial interventions with breast cancer patients are highlighted.
Assuntos
Adaptação Psicológica/classificação , Neoplasias da Mama/psicologia , Mecanismos de Defesa , Fatores Etários , Ansiedade/etiologia , Neoplasias da Mama/patologia , Depressão/etiologia , Escolaridade , Feminino , Seguimentos , Humanos , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Inventário de Personalidade , Análise de Regressão , Estudos de Amostragem , Índice de Gravidade de DoençaRESUMO
Previous research has shown that elderly adults often exhibit intact priming effects on visual implicit memory tests, but little is known about auditory priming and ageing. We examined priming effects on auditory stem-completion and filter identification tasks in older and younger adults. Young subjects showed more priming when speaker's voice was the same as study and test than when it differed, but elderly subjects failed to exhibit this voice-specific priming effect in each of five experiments. The elderly did, however, show robust nonspecific priming. We attempt to rule out hearing deficit accounts of the priming impairment and consider alternative theoretical interpretations of the effect.
Assuntos
Sinais (Psicologia) , Audição , Memória , Adulto , Fatores Etários , Idoso , Análise de Variância , Discriminação Psicológica , Feminino , Perda Auditiva , Humanos , Masculino , Rememoração Mental , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Semântica , VozRESUMO
Previous research has established that elderly adults can exhibit impaired memory for the source of newly acquired facts even when levels of fact recall in old and young do not differ. However, source memory impairments have been observed only under conditions of many-to-1 mapping: A large number of facts are related to either of 2 sources. It is thus possible that apparent source memory impairments reflect a more general age-related problem in handling many-to-1 mappings. Two experiments provide evidence against this possibility by demonstrating age-related source memory deficits with 1-to-1 mapping between facts and sources. The data also indicate that source memory deficits are observed across encoding tasks that manipulate the allocation of attention to the source or to the fact.
