Women's experience of HIV as a chronic illness in South Africa

Hard-Earned Lives, Biographical Disruption and Moral Career

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2249079
AutoresEdwin Wouters (0000-0003-2268-3829, Sociology University of Antwerp Belgium, autor correspondente), Katinka De Wet (0000-0002-7272-7757, Department of Sociology University of the Free State South Africa)
Ano2016
Volume38
Fascículo4
Páginas521-542
Data de publicação2016-05-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSociology of Health & Illness (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0141-9889 • E-ISSN: 1467-9566
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1467-9566.12377
PMID26566037
OpenAlexW2171985444
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas11
Referências citadas47

This article presents findings from a longitudinal qualitative study (48 in-depth interviews with 12 women on antiretroviral treatment (ART)) exploring the experience of living with HIV as a chronic illness in South Africa by applying the structural and interactionist perspectives on chronic illness. The structural perspective indicates that the illness experience needs to be contextualised within the wider framework of the women's hard-earned lives: throughout the interviews, the women tended to refuse singularising HIV/AIDS and continuously framed the illness within the context of general hardship and adversity. Employing an interactionist perspective, the repeated interviews demonstrated the partial applicability of the concept of biographical disruption to the illness experience: most women experienced feelings of denial and disbelief upon diagnosis, but the availability of ART clearly mitigated the impact of HIV on their biographies. In addition, our findings demonstrate that the interaction between structural aspects, (stigmatising) social relations, and the illness (and its treatment) determines the never-ending cycle of identity appraisals, revisions and improvements, rendering the moral career of the HIV-positive women on ART a continuous work in progress

Context (archaeology · Denial · Developmental psychology · Feeling · Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV · Perspective (graphical · Psychotherapist · Qualitative research · Sociology · Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health · HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk · HIV/AIDS Research and Interventions · Medicine · Psychology · Social Psychology