Associations between resilience, self-esteem, HIV status, and sexual identity among residents in Nigeria

Resilience and self-esteem are personal attributes that may moderate the complex psychosocial outcomes associated with HIV infection. The aim of this study was to determine the associations between resilience, self-esteem, HIV status and sexual identity of adolescents and adults in Nigeria. This was a sub-study of a large country wide cross-sectional study that recruited a participants 13 years and above between September and October 2020 using an online survey. Data on sociodemographic characteristics (age, sex at birth, educational status, marital and employment status); sexual identity (heterosexual, lesbian, gay bisexual); HIV status (positive, negative, unknown); self-esteem and resilience were extracted. Two multiple linear regression models were built to determine associations between dependent variables (resilience and self-esteem) and independent variables (HIV status and sexual identity). The sociodemographic characteristics were adjusted as confounders in the analyses. There were 2772 complete responses of which 170 participants (6.1%) reported being HIV positive and 1271 (45.9%) identified as sexual minority individuals. Respondents who were sexual minority individuals had significantly lower resilience (B: -3.61, p