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Background The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is important because it can cause stigma and psychological, family, and social problems in affected people. Objective This study aims to investigate the effect of schema therapy on adaptive and maladaptive strategies of cognitive-emotion regulation in people with HIV. Methods This is an interventional study with a pretest-posttest design. Thirty people with HIV were selected by a convenience sampling method and randomly divided into two groups of intervention and control. Garnefski et al.’s cognitive-emotion regulation questionnaire - short form (CERQ-SF) was used to collect data. The intervention group received 10 two-hour sessions of group treatment based on Young’s schema therapy model. The data analysis was performed in SPSS software, version 26 using descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation) and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The significance level was set at 0.05. Results The results ANCOVA showed that group schema therapy affected the use of adaptive strategies (acceptance, positive refocusing, refocusing on planning, positive reappraisal, and putting into perspective) and maladaptive strategies (self-blame and catastrophizing), (P<0.001). However, it had no significant effect on other-blame (P=0.033) and rumination (P=0.102). Conclusion Schema therapy can increase the use of adaptive strategies and reduce the use of maladaptive strategies (self-blame and catastrophizing) of cognitive-emotion regulation in people with HIV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]