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Long-Term Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms Among Children Affected by Parental HIV: A 12-Year Follow-Up Study

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Abstract

The present study explored the trajectories of depressive symptoms over 12 years spanning from childhood to emerging adulthood and the between-trajectory differences in psychosocial adjustment among Chinese children (N = 492, 52.8% boys, aged 6 to 18 years at baseline) affected by parental HIV. Rebounding (12.6%), resilient (64.8%), and improving  (22.6%) trajectories were identified. Individuals in the rebounding trajectory reported the highest levels of psychological distress and the lowest levels of subjective well-being, positive self-regard, and personal strengths in adulthood. Individuals in the resilient trajectory reported lower levels of psychological distress and negative affect than those in the improving trajectory. The findings support the development of programs by policymakers and practitioners to improve the psychosocial adjustment of children who have been affected by parental HIV while considering individual differences in the trajectories of depressive symptoms.

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Data Availability

Data, material, and code can be obtained by emailing: peilianchi@um.edu.mo.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by The United States National Institutes of Health (Grant # R01MH076488 & R01NR013466),The Science and Technology Development Fund, Macau S.A.R. (FDCT) [0087/2021/A], Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [310432101], and the Foundation for Young Talents in Higher Education of Guangdong Province [2021WQNCX307]. National Social Science Foundation of China (19BSH111).

Funding

Preparation of this manuscript was support by The United States National Institutes of Health (Grant # R01MH076488 & R01NR013466), The Science and Technology Development Fund, Macau S.A.R. (FDCT) [0087/2021/A], Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [310432101], and the Foundation for Young Talents in Higher Education of Guangdong Province [2021WQNCX307]. The funding agencies did not influence the study at any stage (i.e., during design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data and writing the manuscript).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai, Zhuhai, China

    Qinglu Wu

  2. Institute of Psychology and Behavior, Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan, China

    Junfeng Zhao

  3. Department of Psychology, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, Henan, China

    Guoxiang Zhao

  4. Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA

    Xiaoming Li

  5. Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai, Zhuhai, China

    Hongfei Du

  6. Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Macau, E21-3049, Macau, 999078, China

    Peilian Chi

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  1. Qinglu Wu
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  2. Junfeng Zhao
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  3. Guoxiang Zhao
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  4. Xiaoming Li
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  6. Peilian Chi
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Contributions

Conceptualization: QW, XL, HD, PC, JZ, GZ; methodology: JZ, GZ, XL, PC; formal analysis and investigation: QW; writing-original draft preparation: QW; writing-review and editing: HD, PC; funding acquisition: PC, QW; resources: JZ, GZ. This manuscript has been seen and approved by all authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Peilian Chi.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical Approval

Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Boards or the research ethics committees at Wayne State University, Henan University, and University of Macau before data collection.

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Informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study.

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Participants consented that the anonymized data could be kept and used for research purpose.

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Wu, Q., Zhao, J., Zhao, G. et al. Long-Term Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms Among Children Affected by Parental HIV: A 12-Year Follow-Up Study. AIDS Behav 26, 2713–2722 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-021-03572-7

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