Hope and spiritual well-being: essentials for living with AIDS.

Without a cure on the horizon there is a need to identify ways to sustain hope and spiritual well-being in patients with AIDS. This article examines the impact of AIDS on the emotional and spiritual health of its victims and summarizes current research findings on spiritual well-being in the ill. It also summarizes the authors' study on hope and existential and spiritual well-being in a group of 65 adult male patients who were either serum positive for the human immunodeficient virus or who had been diagnosed with AIDS Related Complex or AIDS.