Between the demands of work, family and friends, many women find health takes a back seat. Women with HIV are no exception.
"Many women with the HIV face challenges from sleepless nights to little personal timeall activities that can negatively impact health," says Allison Webel, a clinical research scholar and instructor at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University.
Webel received a one-year grant from the Case Western Reserve University/University Hospitals Case Medical Center for AIDS Research to test ways to promote lifestyle changes.
She will work with patients and their families to make and monitor environmental changes in physical and mental wellness habits.
"These women have many roles in addition to having a chronic disease," Webel said.
Webel's previous work found that juggling responsibilities of being mothers, employees and caretakers, coupled with the anxiety and stigma associated with the disease, prohibited them from getting adequate rest.
Also hampering a healthy lifestyle was lack of personal time to reenergize or relax, finding time to exercise and engaging in spiritual activities.
The new grant enables Webel to test the effectiveness of a self-management intervention developed by Shirley Moore, the associate dean of research at the nursing school and the director of the Center for Excellence for Self-Management and Research Translation (SMART Center).
The SMART Center is a National Institute of Nursing Research/National Institutes of Health funded Center of Excellence that studies how self-care, adherence, compliance, health behavior changes, patient education and collaborative care help patients become informed about their health condition and take an active role in their treatment. The intervention targets changes by the individual, family, organization or community.
Webel will include both men and women in the study. She w
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| Contact: Susan Griffith susan.griffith@case.edu 216-368-1004 Case Western Reserve University Source:Eurekalert |