Behavioral and psychosocial predictors of self-efficacy for managing chronic disease among people living with HIV: forgiveness, life perspective, and social support

HIV medication can help people living with HIV (PLWH) live longer, but many PLWH still report difficulty managing their disease and report engaging in harmful behaviors to themselves and others, which have adverse downstream consequences. Self-efficacy is predictive of positive health behaviors and outcomes, and it is modifiable through interventions. While existing studies overwhelmingly examine self-efficacy among PLWH, much fewer studies focus on self-efficacy for managing HIV, including self-efficacy for managing physical and psychological health problems caused by HIV-common problems that PLWH experience. Additionally, only limited literature on other-forgiveness and life perspective among PLWH exists. Thus, we further examine predictors of self-efficacy for managing HIV. We hypothesize that other-forgiveness, positive life perspective, and social support significantly predict self-efficacy for managing HIV after controlling for demographic variables. The results show that the overall multiple linear regression model significantly accounted for 38% of the variance in self-efficacy for managing HIV. Additionally, other-forgiveness was as powerful at predicting self-efficacy as social support; moreover, positive life perspective was a significant and the most powerful predictor of self-efficacy. These findings indicate that other-forgiveness and positive life regard may be as important, if not more so, than social support to chronic disease management.