Depression and Its Associated Factors Among People Living With HIV in the Volta Region of Ghana

Authors

• Jerry John Nutor, University of California - San Francisco
• Robert Kaba Alhassan, University of Health and Allied Sciences
• Rachel G.A. Thompson, College of Humanities, University of Ghana
• David Ayangba Asakitogum, University of California - San Francisco
• Henry Ofori Duah, Marquette UniversityFollow
• Tiarney D. Ritchwood, Wake Forest University
• Nkothula Nkosi, University of the Witwatersrand
• Ntombifikile Klaas, University of the Witwatersrand
• Sampson Opoku Agyemang, University of Cape Coast
• Akua O. Gyamerah, University of Buffalo

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-2024

Publisher

Public Library of Science (PLoS)

Source Publication

PLoS Mental Health

Source ISSN

2837-8156

Abstract

Depression among people living with HIV/AIDS in higher-income countries is associated with suboptimal adherence to antiretroviral therapy and though counterintuitive. Yet, less is known regarding how depression, social support, and other sociodemographic factors influence outcomes among people living with HIV, particularly in resource-limited settings like Ghana. In view of this gap, this study investigated factors associated with depressive symptoms among people living with HIV in the Volta region of Ghana. A total of 181 people living with HIV from a local antiretroviral clinic was purposively sampled for the study. The questionnaire included the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, the Internalized Stigma of HIV/AIDS Tool, and the Interpersonal Support Evaluation List-12. An independent student t-test, one-way analysis of variance, and chi-square test were conducted to ascertain the associations among the variables of interest. The magnitude of association was evaluated with multiple linear regression. The average depression score among the participants was 9.1±8.8 and 20.4% reported signs of depression. Majority (78%) of participants who were depressed were male compared to females (p = 0.031). In the multiple linear regression, every one-year increase in age was significantly associated with an estimated 0.012 standard deviation increase in depression scores (95% CI: 0.002–0.021) after adjusting for all other variables in the model. Every unit standard deviation increase in social support was significantly associated with an estimated 0.659 standard deviation increase in depression scores (95% CI:0.187–1.132), after adjusting for all other variables in the model. We found a high prevalence of depressive symptoms among people living with HIV especially among males. An increase in age and social support was associated with an increase in depressive symptoms among people living with HIV in this study. We recommend further study using longitudinal approach to understand this unexpected association between depression and social support among people living with HIV in Ghana.

Comments

Published version. PLOS Mental Health, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2024). DOI. This article is © The Authors. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Henry Duah was affiliated with University of Cincinnati at the time of publication.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Nutor, Jerry John; Alhassan, Robert Kaba; Thompson, Rachel G.A.; Asakitogum, David Ayangba; Duah, Henry Ofori; Ritchwood, Tiarney D.; Nkosi, Nkothula; Klaas, Ntombifikile; Agyemang, Sampson Opoku; and Gyamerah, Akua O., "Depression and Its Associated Factors Among People Living With HIV in the Volta Region of Ghana" (2024). College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications. 1219.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/nursing_fac/1219