The comparison of individuals' anxiety of death, levels of significance in life, fear of COVID-19 and levels of hopelessness during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to their status of HIV+ diagnosis

In this study, it was aimed to comparatively examine the death anxiety, meaning in life levels, fear of COVID-19 and hopelessness levels of HIV+ and non-HIV+ individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, causal-comparison method based on relational screening, one of the quantitative research models, was used. Within the scope of the study, the Turkish Death Anxiety Scale was used to measure the death anxiety level of individuals, the Meaning in Life Scale was used to measure their level of meaning in life, the COVID-19 Fear Scale was used to measure their fear of the COVID-19 outbreak, and the Beck Hopelessness Scale and Personal Information Form were used to measure their level of hopelessness. Data were collected from the two groups separately through questionnaires on a voluntary basis. Data were collected from 79 people who were not diagnosed with HIV+ and 70 patients diagnosed with HIV+ totaling 149 people. The data were analyzed with the SPSS 22 program and skewness and kurtosis coefficients were taken into account in the evaluation of normality. Within the scope of the study, Independent Sample T-Test and One Way ANOVA tests were used as comparative tests for normally distributed data, and Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests were used for non-normally distributed data. In addition, Pearson Correlation analysis was performed to examine the relationship between death anxiety, meaning in life level, fear of COVID-19 and hopelessness, and Multiple Linear Regression analysis was performed to examine the level of meaning in life, fear of COVID-19 and hopelessness level predicting death anxiety. As a result of this study, death anxiety, sub-dimensions of death anxiety, meaning in life levels, sub-dimensions of meaning in life, COVID-19 fear levels and future expectation and hope sub-dimensions of hopelessness do not differ statistically significantly (p>.05). However, individuals' levels of hopelessness and loss of motivation, which is a sub-dimension of hopelessness, differ statistically significantly according to whether they are diagnosed with HIV+ or not (p<.05). It was determined that individuals diagnosed with HIV+ had lower levels of hopelessness and loss of motivation, which is a sub-dimension of hopelessness, compared to individuals who were not diagnosed with HIV+. In future studies, it is recommended to obtain information about how researchers evaluate the health status of HIV+ individuals and to address the studies to be conducted with this information. Keywords: HIV+, Death Anxiety, Meaning in Life, Fear of COVID-19, Hopelessness