A Study On Sigma Coping And Posttraumatic Growth Of AIDS Orphan In Adolescence

AIDS orphan is a special population. Although they are not AIDS, but AIDS stigma had affected seriously their daily life and well being, also threaten social stabilization and social harmony. Recently, researchers paid more attention to the negative effect of stigma on these children, but less to regard their stigma coping and posttraumatic growth. There are many AIDS orphans in Henan and Anhui Province, many of which in adolescence. The author has gong to HeNan and Anhui Provinc twice from2009to2011, used AIDS orphan in adolescence as sample to research their AIDS stigma structure, stigma coping and posttraumatic growth. The research is divided into four parts.Study1including two sub-study, one is a qualitative analysis from the perspective of the public to analyze the stigma of AIDS orphans in adolescent; The other is to explore the status of stigma. We found that:(1) the stigma structure of AIDS adolescent orphans had three dimensionality:actual stigma, expectant stigma and self stigma;(2) AIDS adolescent orphans not only had higher stigma feeling, but also showed significant difference as follows:the AIDS orphans of senior high school had higher stigma feeling than that of junior high school; male orphan had more actual stigma and expectant stigma than that of female; female AIDS orphan had stronger stigma feeling than that of male; the AIDS orphan with independent living or fostered by kindred had higher stigma feeling than that of collective fostered.Study2investigated stigma coping pattern and factors that affected this coping pattern with samples of192AIDS adolescent orphans and347adolescent children from normal family respectively. The result showed that:(1) both have many coping patterns, but AIDS adolescent orphans use more fantasy and avoidance than Problem-solving and helping seeking;(2) Self-esteem and social support had significant effect on AIDS adolescent orphans. Specially, the orphans of higher self-esteem and higher social support more used positive coping pattern of problem solving, cognize reconstruct and help seeking than that of the orphans of lower in self-esteem and social support. The latter often used coping pattern of self-accusation, Fantasy and avoidance;Study3used192AIDS adolescent orphans and347adolescent children from normal family respectively as samples to explore posttraumatic growth and factors that affected the growth. The result showed that:both have posttraumatic growth, but the level of AIDS orphans is lower than that of normal children, and the level of posttraumatic growth of AIDS orphan had significant difference. Specially, the level on interpersonal relationship of junior high school samples were significantly higher than that of senior high school; the whole level of posttraumatic growth, and the level of interpersonal relationship and enjoying life of AIDS orphan with collective fostering were significantly higher than that of AIDS orphan living an independent life or fostered by kindred. The whole level of posttraumatic growth of female AIDS orphans was significantly higher than that of male. Social support, self esteem and coping pattern affected posttraumatic growth of AIDS adolescent orphans.Study4use36AIDS adolescent orphans as samples to explore the effect of group intervention. We found significant difference between experiment group and control group:group intervention not only reduce stigma feeling and negative coping pattern of experiment group, but also improve their positive coping pattern, self esteem, social support and posttraumatic growth. This means group intervention not only can decrease AIDS adolescent orphans’ stigma feeling, change their cognitive coping pattern, but also can widen their resource of social support, enhance their self esteem, and promote their posttraumatic growth.Finally, the author has generalized the conclusion, innovation and deficiency of research, and put forward the direction for future researches.