Abstract
Depression is highly prevalent among individuals living with HIV/AIDS. Depression not only affects quality of life for this population but also confers significant barriers to optimizing self-care behaviors, which are essential to medical care. Two of the most important HIV/AIDS care behaviors are medication adherence and safe sex practices; inadequacy in both can be associated with depression. Depression among those living with HIV/AIDS also is associated with substance abuse, which in turn predicts poor self-care. Importantly, there has recently been an emphasis on creating and testing integrative psychosocial interventions that address depression and self-care behaviors among people living with HIV/AIDS. These combination treatments have displayed initial efficacy and appear to be efficient in addressing multiple health behaviors. This chapter briefly reviews the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS and salient biological outcomes in the context of depression. It then discusses the role of depression and self-care behaviors and it concludes with a review of interventions and future research priorities.