Coping, psychological adjustment, and complementary and alternative medicine use in persons living with HIV and AIDS

Many HIV-positive individuals dissatisfied with allopathic approaches to di sease management have turned to complementary and alternative medicines (CA M). Although people use CAM for a variety of reasons (e.g., symptom managem ent. holistic approach towards healthcare, improved immunity), the psycholo gical benefits that these treatments may have are still not fully understoo d. The present study was designed to further previous research that demonst rated relationships between CAM use, stress appraisals, and coping behavior s. HIV-positive individuals (N = 127) completed measures assessing stress a ppraisals, coping, psychological adjustment, satisfaction with life, and im mune functioning. After controlling for ethnicity and sexual orientation, s tress appraisals and coping behaviors were found to be related to CAM use. Further, curvilinear relationships between CAM use and adjustment emerged, suggesting that some CAM use may be adaptive. Self-reported immune measures were unrelated to CAM use. In all, it appears that CAM use may be a comple x form of coping that assists individuals in adjusting to a life-threatenin g illness. The implications of these findings with respect to adherence to highly active antiretroviral therapies (HAART) are also discussed.