[Persons living with HIV: stress and their way of facing the disease].

A study about the stress influence in the life of people with the HIV/AIDS positive was carried out with eleven HIV positive men in order to analyse the stress and the daily life of HIV people. Using interviews as a way to collect data, we found that many of these individuals had been submitted to stress situations such as: social and sexual changes, material losses, loneliness and fear of dying. The ways of facing up these situations were escaping from reality, being happy at all costs and trying to forget the illness. We concluded that there is a need to prepare them to face the stress, and also for an effective intervention from the health professionals in this question.