Counseling Therapy with Hatha Yoga on Adherence Level, Nutritional Status, and Quality of Life Among HIV-Infected Adolescents: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Introduction: HIV infection and AIDS are associated with numerous challenges, and infected people experience extreme despair, fear, anxiety, and depression. However, counseling therapy and yoga techniques may help ease stress-related illness, produce internal strength through relaxation, and enhance immunity. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of counseling therapy and Hatha yoga on the adherence level, nutritional status, and quality of life (QOL) of HIV-infected adolescents. Materials and Methods: A randomized controlled trial study was conducted. Through the simple random method, 388 (195 in the experimental and 193 in the control group) HIVinfected adolescents were selected. The data of HIV-infected adolescents and caregivers were collected from four main Antiretroviral Therapy clinics in Chennai, India, through Standardized Antiretroviral Therapy adherence, QOL, and a structured nutritional assessment questionnaire. Motivational counseling was given to the experimental group, and the researcher demonstrated selected asanas. The data were collected from both groups at 0, 3, and 6 months intervals. The descriptive statistics of mean, standard deviation, and inferential statistics of the student independent t test and Chi-square test were used to determine the effectiveness of interventional variables in both groups. Results: The Mean±SD age of the experimental group of adolescents was 13.6±2.2 years, and that of the control group was 13.8±2.4 years. There is an improvement range in the experimental vs the control group for the components of adherence level (13.4% vs 4.9%) and QOL (15.1% vs 0.9%) at a significance of P=0.001 with a 95% confidence interval. Also, the nutritional gain score was significantly increased to 9.3% vs 1.5% (P=0.05). Regarding CD4 (cluster of differentiation 4) count, the baseline mean score was 664.86 vs 669.72, whereas, in the sixth month, it significantly increased to 840.35 vs 703.35 (P=0.001). Conclusion: Motivational counseling and behavior modification of yoga efficiently improved health status and well-being among HIV-infected adolescents in the experimental group compared to the control group.