The Perceived Medical Condition Self-Management Scale applied to persons with HIV/AIDS.

The Perceived Medical Condition Self-Management Scale (PMCSMS), a generic instrument developed to assess self-management self-efficacy in specific medical conditions, was tailored for use with HIV+ individuals and administered to 125 HIV+ adults, predominantly men. Cronbach's alpha was 0.78, indicating internal consistency reliability. Correlations between the Perceived HIV Self-Management Scale (PHIVSMS) and other validated psychometric instruments measuring generalized self efficacy, dispositional optimism, depressive symptoms, positive and negative affect and HIV quality of life demonstrate the validity of using this scale with an HIV population. The PMCSMS has broad utility as a generic template that can easily be adapted to different medical conditions.