Evaluating Self-Efficacy for HIV Disease Management Skills

Self-efficacy is an important determinant of health behavior, but little is known about how to measure self-efficacy for HIV disease management. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of a new HIV Self-Efficacy (HIV-SE) questionnaire. The HIV-SE was developed with 34 items in six specific conceptual domains and 3 additional items assessing general management. The HIV-SE was administered to 153 HIV+ symptomatic adults receiving care in academic and community-based HIV practices. The six domains were managing mood, managing medications, managing symptoms, managing fatigue, communicating with the healthcare provider, and getting support. Internal consistency reliabilities for the six conceptual domains/subscales ranged from 0.88 to 0.97. Confirmatory factor analyses were run comparing the six-factor model, allowing the factors to be related, and a single-factor model. The results generally support the six-factor model. Based on this initial evaluation, we propose a 34-item HIV-SE with six subscales (available at http://www.ari.ucsd.edu/CFAR/Questionnaires.html) for use in evaluating interventions to improve patients' medication adherence and other disease self-management behaviors. Further psychometric evaluation should address consideration of additional domains and differentiation between the depression and the fatigue domains.