Mental health symptoms tend to correlate with one another within individuals. An exploratory factor analysis was performed on responses to five questionnaires related to depression, anxiety, trauma and perceived stress to determine which items related most highly to a common underlying construct in women with HIV (n = 35). Individual responses were further analyzed with respect to ruminations, which are repetitive thoughts about the self and with respect to interoception, which involves cognitive awareness of bodily states. Scores for ruminative thoughts were highly correlated with those for trauma-related thoughts (r = 0.77), perceived stress (r = 0.64), and symptoms of depression (r = 0.75). Items of mental health loaded highly and consistently onto one factor that accounted for 66% of the variance in the data. The principal factor accounted for 94% of the variance in measures of rumination, 87% for depression, 75% for trauma and stress, and 73% for anxiety. Women who endorsed greater numbers of maladaptive symptoms related to mental health (indicated by elevated factor scores) reported a decreased ability to sense and trust their bodily sensations and regulate thoughts and feelings related to these sensations. The general mental health factor did not relate to actual interoceptive awareness, as measured with a heartbeat tracking task. These results reveal a common and measurable mental health factor related to repetitive and body-related thoughts in people who are experiencing the everyday stress of living with a chronic disease.

心理健康症状在个体中往往相互关联。对与抑郁症，焦虑症，创伤和感知压力有关的五份调查表的回答进行了探索性因素分析，以确定哪些项目与艾滋病毒女性共同的基本构成因素最相关（n  = 35）。进一步分析了关于反刍的个体反应，反刍是关于自我的重复性思考，是关于涉及身体状态的认知意识的互感的。反刍思想的得分与创伤相关思想的得分（r  = 0.77），感知压力（r  = 0.64）和抑郁症状（r = 0.75）。心理健康项目高度且始终如一地加载到一个因素中，该因素占数据差异的66％。主要因素占反刍措施差异的94％，抑郁症的87％，创伤和压力的75％和焦虑的73％。赞成与心理健康有关的不良适应症状的人数增多（由较高的因子评分表示）的妇女报告说，感知和信任自己的身体感觉以及调节与这些感觉有关的思想和感觉的能力下降。一般的心理健康因素与心跳跟踪任务所测得的实际感知意识无关。