Representações sociais de homens infectados pelo HIV acerca da AIDS

• Ano de defesa: 2006
• Autor(a) principal: Aglaya Barros Coelho
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais; UFMG
• Palavras-chave em Português: Morte; Homens e HIV/AIDS; Estigma; Representação social; Síndrome de imunodeficiência adquirida/psicologia; Percepção; Enfermagem; Homens; Preconceito
• Link de acesso: http://hdl.handle.net/1843/GCPA-6WLGR2

The historical-epidemiological process of AIDS encompasses the forms through which society develops knowledge, representation, beliefs, and meanings attributed to the disease, its prevention, health promotion, and the technology made available for treatment. This study belongs to a research project entitled Determining Factors in Anti-retroviral TreatmentCompliance in HIV-infected subjects in Belo Horizonte A Quantitative and Qualitative Approach (ATAR Project, Anti-retroviral treatment adherence), developed by the Center for Research and Study in Epidemiology and Health Assessment (GPEAS) and financed by theBrazilian National Health Authority. Twenty-two interviews with HIV-infected men were analyzed. The subjects were followed in two different reference services for HIV/AIDS treatment in Belo Horizonte, carried out in the period 2001-2003. Patients came from CTRDIPCenter for Training and Reference of Infectious and Parasitary Diseases), Health Center Orestes Diniz (adjacent to CTR-DIP), and the ER of Hospital Eduardo de Menezes (HEM). Interview analysis, based on Structural Analysis of Narrative and a theoretical basis of SocialRepresentations, revealed the existence of a trajectory of resignification for patients, in which social representations are reorganized through experience in order to better incorporate changes in the daily life of these HIV-infected men. This trajectory starts when the patient begins to feel threatened by the diagnosis, continues throughout treatment with antiretrovirals (ARV), and is established poorly during changes in daily life in the social and familial spheres. Results show that representations are anchored in concepts put forward by the social stigma of AIDS developed over time. This leads to a process of constant autonomy andcontrol over ones life and acceptance of death. Therefore, it can be said that HIV/AIDS representations for these men are based on elements related to death, stigma of the disease, life perspective, and the elimination of the virus from their bodies. Perception of risk changesover time, since upon diagnosis there is the realization that risk is no longer distant and attributed to other people, but rather near and present in daily life, including the possibility of contamination of other individuals. The stigma attributed to the disease still exists today, and it is based on representations of danger or dirtiness, and prejudice since the beginning of the epidemic, showing forms of social interaction and secrecy of HIV-infection. It can be said, therefore, that the central nucleuses of representation have not changed, but peripheralelements have, given the advent of ARVs, which have changed death by AIDS from quick and sure to postponed.