THE EFFECTS OF LOGOTHERAPY AND REASSURANCE ON ADJUSTMENT OF HIV POSITIVE YOUTHS TO STIGMATIZATION

The study was designed to determine the effects of logotherapy and reassurance counselling on HIV positive youths in Enugu State. The study was guided by three research questions and three hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance. A true experimental design was adopted for the study. A total of 32 HIV positive youths were used for the study. The instrument for data collection was a 22 item questionnaire which was titled Adjustment scale instrument for HIV positive youths (ASIHPY). The instrument was validated by three experts, all from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbach Alpha statistics which yielded an estimated value of 0.83. The HIV positive youths in the three experimental groups were pretested with ASIHPY before receiving appropriate treatments on logotherapy and reassurance counselling. After the treatments, ASIHPY was re-administered on both groups as post test. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the four research questions while Analysis of Covariance, (ANCOVA) was used to test the three hypotheses posed. It was found that: the two treatment groups had better adjustment as shown by their pretest posttest mean differences. Also, gender had a significant influence on the HIV positive youths. It was recommended that guidance counsellors, educational psychologists should plan a programme of intervention based on the principles for HIV positive youths adjustment; and the federal and state ministries of Education should organize and sponsor workshops and seminars for educational psychologists and school guidance counsellors on how to implement logotherapy and reassurance counselling techniques.

Human Imuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) is a viral infection that has the effects of destroying the body’s immune system, a situation called “Acquired Immuno-deficiency Syndrome” (AIDS). AIDS is a fatal disease in which the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) gradually destroys the ability of the immune system to fight off a wide range of infectious agents (National Action Committee on AIDS-NACA, 2007). Researches on AIDS had shown that HIV is transmitted through blood contact, sexual intercourse with an infected person, sharing of sharp body piercing objects, homosexual contacts and mother to child transmission during pregnancy, labour and breast feeding (NACA, 2007). The mode of transmission of HIV makes it very vulnerable to be transmitted from one person to another (NACA, 2007). Since the first case of HIV was reported in 1981, millions of people had died globally from the infection. For instance, in 2008 the estimated number of people living with HIV in Nigeria was projected at 2.95 million while the cumulative AIDS death was estimated at 280,000 people annually, (National HIV Sero-prevalence Sentinel Survey: Preliminary findings, 2008)

The pandemic of HIV and AIDS has spread to all regions of the globe and infected over forty million people worldwide that are currently living with this fatal disease (UNAIDS, 2002).