Translation and Validation: Chinese Version of the HIV-Related Social Support Scale.

PURPOSE

Social support is increasingly recognized to be important in care of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH), we firstly translate and validate the disease-targeted social support instrument in Chinese and to explore the correlation with WHOQOL-HIV.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

We established content validity for HIV-related social support scale (HSSS) and administered the resultant questionnaire to 310 PLWH. Descriptive statistics were generated for each of the variables of general characteristics; student -test was used to compare the different groups.

RESULTS

The HSSS demonstrated a high level of internal consistency, both within each subscale and with the total score; all Cronbach's α values exceeded a priori threshold of ≥0.70. The HSSS cores were positively correlated with WHOQOL-HIV total scores (Pearson correlation: 0.39, < 0.001). We also found that higher educational level, personal income, CD4 cell count, and shorter duration of antiretroviral therapy are significantly associated with a higher level of social support ( < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

Social support may improve quality of life for PLWH, Chinese version of HIV-related social support scale can be used in future clinical practice.