IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v68y2009i4p749-757.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The virus stops with me: HIV-infected Ugandans' motivations in preventing HIV transmission

Author

Listed:
  • King, Rachel
  • Lifshay, Julie
  • Nakayiwa, Sylvia
  • Katuntu, David
  • Lindkvist, Pille
  • Bunnell, Rebecca

Abstract

Few Positive Prevention interventions have been implemented in Africa; however, greater attention is now being paid to interventions that include messages of personal responsibility or altruism that may motivate HIV-infected individuals towards HIV prevention behaviors in Africa. We conducted 47 in-depth interviews in 2004 with HIV-infected men and women purposefully sampled to represent a range of sexual activities among clients of an AIDS support organization in Uganda. Qualitative interviews were selected from a cross-sectional survey of 1092 HIV-infected men and women. Clients were interviewed about their concerns around sexual HIV transmission, feelings of responsibility and reasons for these feelings, as well as about the challenges and consequences of actions to prevent HIV transmission. The reasons they provided for their sense of prevention responsibility revolved around ethical and practical themes. Responsibility toward sexual partners was linked to the belief that conscious transmission of HIV equals murder, would cause physical and emotional harm, and would leave children orphaned. The primary reason specific to preventing HIV transmission to unborn children was the perception that they are 'innocent'. Most participants felt that HIV-infected individuals held a greater responsibility for preventing HIV transmission than did HIV-uninfected individuals. Respondents reported that their sense of responsibility lead them to reduce HIV transmission risk, encourage partner testing, disclose HIV test results, and assume an HIV/AIDS educator role. Challenges to HIV preventive behavior and altruistic intentions included: sexual desire; inconsistent condom use, especially in long term relationships; myths around condom use; fear of disclosure; gender-power dynamics; and social and financial pressure. Our finding that altruism played an important role in motivating preventive behaviors among HIV-infected persons in Uganda supports the inclusion of altruistic prevention and counseling messages within Positive Prevention interventions.

Suggested Citation

  • King, Rachel & Lifshay, Julie & Nakayiwa, Sylvia & Katuntu, David & Lindkvist, Pille & Bunnell, Rebecca, 2009. "The virus stops with me: HIV-infected Ugandans' motivations in preventing HIV transmission," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(4), pages 749-757, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:68:y:2009:i:4:p:749-757
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(08)00586-8
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schiltz, M. A. & Sandfort, Th. G. M., 2000. "HIV-positive people, risk and sexual behaviour," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 50(11), pages 1571-1588, June.
    2. Janssen, R.S. & Holtgrave, D.R. & Valdiserri, R.O. & Shepherd, M. & Gayle, H.D. & De Cock, K.M., 2001. "The serostatus approach to fighting the HIV epidemic: Prevention strategies for infected individuals," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 91(7), pages 1019-1024.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lall, Priya, 2014. "Social Factors Affecting Women's Susceptibility to HIV in India," ADBI Working Papers 485, Asian Development Bank Institute.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pierret, Janine, 2007. "An analysis over time (1990-2000) of the experiences of living with HIV," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(8), pages 1595-1605, October.
    2. Doyal, Lesley & Anderson, Jane & Paparini, Sara, 2009. "'You are not yourself': Exploring masculinities among heterosexual African men living with HIV in London," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(10), pages 1901-1907, May.
    3. Ridge, Damien & Ziebland, Sue & Anderson, Jane & Williams, Ian & Elford, Jonathan, 2007. "Positive prevention: Contemporary issues facing HIV positive people negotiating sex in the UK," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(4), pages 755-770, August.
    4. Wilson, Amy R. & Kahn, James G. & Oren, Shmuel S., 2005. "Targeting interventions to high-risk populations: Benefits and costs," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 335-349, December.
    5. Peretti-Watel, P. & Spire, B. & Schiltz, M.A. & Bouhnik, A.D. & Heard, I. & Lert, F. & Obadia, Y., 2006. "Vulnerability, unsafe sex and non-adherence to HAART: Evidence from a large sample of French HIV/AIDS outpatients," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(10), pages 2420-2433, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:68:y:2009:i:4:p:749-757. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.