Psychological Adaptation among Women with HIV after Childbirth

The paper deals with the issues of psychological adaptation to motherhood among women with HIV and substantiates the necessity of providing special psychological counseling for such women. A research involving 135 mothers with children under 2 years of age was carried out, with HIV-positive mothers in the main group and healthy women in the control group. The following aspects were assessed: emotional disturbances (Integrative Anxiety Test (ITT), Beck Depression Inventory), locus of control (Rotter's Locus of Control Scale), significant relationships (unfinished sentences, TOBOL technique), parental attitudes (PARI), and mother-child interaction (observation and psychodiagnostic interview). The research outcomes show that poor psychological adaptation is more likely to occur in mothers with HIV, which is due as to premorbid clinical and social aspects as to certain features of personal relationships. Such poor adaptation to motherhood reveals itself in depressive reactions and state of mind, feelings of helplessness and despair which, in turn, affects the mothers' attitude towards their children.