LAUSR

OBJECTIVE Check diagnostic accuracy of the defining characteristics of the nursing diagnosis "Ineffective health self-management" in people living with HIV. METHODS Methodological study conducted in a specialized public service for people living with HIV in Northeastern Brazil, between February and April 2021, with a sample of 203 people. Latent class analysis was used to calculate the accuracy measurements of the defining characteristics, as well as the sensitivity and specificity values with their respective 95% confidence intervals. The likelihood ratio test (G2 ) was applied to evaluate the adequacy of the fit of the models obtained (p > 0.05). RESULTS The prevalence of Ineffective health self-management estimated through the latent class model was 67.5%. "Exacerbation of diseases symptoms," "failure to take action that reduces risk factor," "exacerbation of diseases signs," and "ineffective choices in daily living for meeting health goal" had the highest sensitivity values (0.80-0.9429). "Exhibits disease sequelae," "inattentive to diseases signs," and "inattentive to disease symptoms" had the highest specificity values (0.9999-1.0000). CONCLUSIONS The useful characteristics for discriminating PLHIV with and without diagnosis are "exacerbation of diseases symptoms," "failure to take action that reduces risk factor," "exacerbation of diseases signs," and "ineffective choices in daily living for meeting health goal." The diagnosis can be confirmed by the indicators "exhibits disease sequelae", "inattentive to diseases signs," and "inattentive to disease symptoms." IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING PRACTICES The study demonstrates the levels of importance of the defining characteristics of "Ineffective health self-management" in people living with HIV contributes to suspicion and accurate diagnostic identification of nurses and researchers.