Abstract:
The purpose of this research was to study the effect of reality therapy group on coping with stress in HIV infected persons. The hypotheses were that (1) the posttest scores on the problem-focused coping scale and the functional emotion- focused coping scale of the experimental group would be higher than its pretest scores and the posttest scores of the control group. (2) the posttest scores on the avoidance- focused coping scale of the experimental group would be lower than its pretest scores and the posttest scores of the control group. The research design was the pretest-posttest control group design. The samples was 16 HIV infected persons randomly selected from the HIV infected persons who scored at the 30 percentile and below onthe problem- focused coping scale and the functional emotion- focused coping scale, and scored at the 70 percentile and above on avoidance- focused coping scale. They were randomly assigned to the experimental group, and the control group, each group comprising 8 persons. The experimental group participated in a group reality therapy program conducted by the researcher, for a session of two and a half hours, two or three sessions a week over a period of 3 consecutive weeks for the total of 8 sessions, which made approximately 20 hours. The intrument used in this study was the ways of coping questionnaire developed from folkman and Lazarus's ways of coping questionnaire. The t-test was ultilized for data analysis. The results indicated that: (1) The posttest scores on the problem-focused coping scale and the functional emotion-focused coping scale of the experimental group were higher than its pretest scores and higher than the posttest scores of the control group at .01 level of significance. (2) The posttest scores on the avoidance- focused coping scale of the experimental group were lower than its pretest scores and lower than the posttest scores of the control group at .01 level of significance