Theorizing the complexity of HIV disclosure in vulnerable populations: a grounded theory study

Experiences of South African caregivers disclosing to their children living with HIV: Qualitative investigations

Awareness of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) status improves health outcomes in children living with HIV, yet caregivers often delay disclosure. This qualitative investigation explored, through observation, how 30 caregivers responded to a HIV Disclosure study conducted between 2017 and 2020 at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, Soweto, South Africa. Caregivers were assisted in disclosing to their children, aged 7-13 years; followed by a sub-sample of caregivers providing in-depth interviews to elaborate on findings.1) Barriers to disclosure included: caregivers being ill equipped, the fear of negative consequences and children considered lacking emotional or cognitive readiness. 2) Deflecting diagnosis from their children and the need for medication, motivated caregivers to disclosure. 3) Apprehension was evident during disclosure; however, overall disclosure was a positive experience with the support of the healthcare providers. These results highlight the significant role healthcare providers' play in supporting caregivers through the disclosure process.

'Menstruation means impurity': multilevel interventions are needed to break the menstrual taboo in Nepal

Background

During their menstrual period, women are generally considered impure in Nepal; in the rural areas of the western part of the country, they are even banished to stay in sheds (called chhaupadi) during this time, which increases their vulnerability to a variety of health consequences. There is lack of clarity regarding the effectiveness of interventions that have been implemented to address menstrual taboo and improve menstrual hygiene and practices in Nepal (e.g., public awareness, community sensitization and legislation). In this paper, we discuss why menstruation management interventions, particularly those implemented to change the menstrual taboo might not work, and the opinions and experiences regarding the implementation of such interventions.

Main text

Anecdotal reports from the field and empirical studies suggest that interventions to address menstrual taboos have only been effective for short durations of time due to several reasons. First, local community stakeholders have been reluctant to take actions to abandon retrogressive menstrual practices in rural areas. Second, women who have stopped practising chhaupadi have faced stigma (e.g., fear of exclusion) and discrimination (e.g., blaming, physical and verbal abuse). Third, contextual factors, such as poverty and illiteracy, limit the effectiveness of such interventions. Fourth, community sensitization activities against chhaupadi have faced resistance from community leaders and traditional healers. Fifth, the law prohibiting chhaupadi has also faced implementation problems, including poor filing of complaints.

Conclusion

Multilevel, multisectoral interventions could be more effective than single-component interventions in breaking the prevailing menstrual taboo and in improving menstrual health and hygiene practices among young girls and women in the rural areas of Nepal. Moreover, interventions that have an active community mobilization component could be effective within local contexts and cultural groups.

Towards a definition of male partner involvement in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Uganda: a pragmatic grounded theory approach

Background

Male partner involvement has been shown to increase mothers’ uptake of Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) and improve maternal and infant HIV treatment outcomes. Currently, male involvement in PMTCT is measured primarily through men’s attendance at HIV testing and counselling which may not be a true reflection of their engagement. This study therefore set out to explore the meaning of male partner involvement and propose a definition and theoretical model of this concept in PMTCT in Uganda.

Methods

Eight focus group discussions and five in-depth interviews were conducted with couples at three public health facilities and community members in the health facility catchment areas in Uganda. The study employed a grounded theory approach underpinned by the pragmatic philosophical paradigm. Data were analyzed using the constant comparative method, performing three levels of open, axial, and selective coding.

Results

Of the 61 participants, 29 (48%) were male and the majority 39 (63.9%) were in long term marital relationships, while about half were self-employed 29 (47.5%). Three themes emerged for the meaning of male involvement in PMTCT (a) HIV treatment support (b) economic support and (c) psychosocial support. HIV treatment support included adherence support, couples’ HIV counseling and testing, and clinic attendance during and after pregnancy. Participants expressed that men were engaged in PMTCT when they offered economic support by providing basic needs and finances or when they included their female partners in financial planning for the family. Psychosocial support arose from the female participants who defined male involvement as family support, perceived societal recognition and emotional support. Emotional support also included the absence of harm resulting from women’s disclosure of HIV test results to their male partner.

Conclusions

This study proposes a new definition for male partner involvement in PMTCT in Uganda. The definition extends beyond men’s clinic attendance and HIV testing and counselling. Further research should seek to develop and validate tools to accurately measure male partner involvement as the next step in the development of interventions to improve PMTCT outcomes.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12913-019-4401-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

'Menstrual blood is bad and should be cleaned': A qualitative case study on traditional menstrual practices and contextual factors in the rural communities of far-western Nepal

Objective:

Unhealthy menstrual practices and the contexts surrounding them should be explored and clearly understood; this information could be useful while developing and implementing interventions to increase hygienic practices during menstruation and consequently increase health and well-being of women. Therefore, this study was conducted to explore traditional menstrual practices and the contextual factors surrounding the practices in the rural communities of far-western Nepal.

Methods:

This was a qualitative case study conducted in the Achham district of Nepal. Semi-structured interviews were conducted among four women, three men and two female community health volunteers to collect data and thematic analysis was performed to analyze the data.

Results:

We found two commonly reported menstrual practices: seclusion practice (Chhaupadi) and separation practice. In the Chhaupadi practice, women are secluded to stay in a small shed away from the house and restricted to wash or take a bath in public water sources for 5–7 days of the periods, whereas in the separation practice, women can stay in the house, but they still have several restrictions. The contextual factors that were reported to influence the cultural practices are as follows: cultural beliefs that symbolize menstruation as impure, menstrual stigma, poverty, illiteracy, the influence of traditional healers and family members, and limited effect of Chhaupadi elimination interventions. We also found that some development in the reduction of cultural myths and practices is happening, but the rate of change is rather slow.

Conclusion:

Most of the Nepalese women, especially in the rural areas of far-western Nepal, are forced to follow the harmful menstrual practices because of the socio-cultural context surrounding their lives. We believe the findings of this study would be relevant in terms of developing and implementing further menstrual health-related, community-based interventions that will be responsive to the local cultural context, beliefs, and practices.

Aspects that influence the self-care of patients living with human immunodeficiency virus

Objective:

to analyze aspects related to the increase or decrease of self-care in patients living with human immunodeficiency virus treated in a specialized outpatient service.

Method:

analytical cross-sectional study with 135 patients aged 18 and over, of both sexes, who are followed up on the service. The independent variables and outcomes were collected from the nursing consultation instrument, whose theoretical reference is the Orem’s Theory. The data were analyzed by parametric approach. Relationships or differences were considered significant if p <0.05. The analysis was done with SPSS v21.0 software.

Results:

most participants were male (56.3%), with a mean age of 42.1 years. Patients who needed to conceal the diagnosis had less self-care (β = -0.72 (-1.38, -0.06), p <0.031). The chance of performing self-care decreased with increasing age (OR = 0.93 (0.89, 0.97), p <0.003). On the other hand, patients with a permanent partner had a higher chance of performing self-care (OR = 3.46 (1.27, 9.46), p <0.015).

Conclusion:

aspects related to the increase or decrease of self-care in patients living with human immunodeficiency virus were evidenced. However, further studies are necessary to emphasize the analytical character of the self-care of these patients.

Strategies for engaging men in HIV services

The importance of men in the global HIV response is increasingly recognised. In most settings, men are less engaged in HIV services and have worse health outcomes than women. The multiple gender, social, economic, political, and institutional factors behind these patterns are well documented. More recently, researchers have been reporting evidence on strategies aimed at improving the engagement of men in HIV services. Several promising approaches exist, including community-based outreach programmes, gender-transformative interventions to shift gender norms and practices, and the development of more responsive, male-friendly health services. Challenges remain, however, in terms of cost and sustainability, intersecting inequalities like race and class, and the difficulty of changing community-level gender norms. Future research should focus on developing theory-informed interventions and evaluations, on improving the understanding of specific subpopulations of men, and on broadening the evidence base beyond the few countries that produce most research in this field.

Stigma reduction in relation to HIV test uptake in low- and middle-income countries: a realist review

Background

This realist review was conducted to understand how stigma is reduced in relation to HIV test uptake in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Methods

A systematic search of eight databases resulted in 34 articles considered for synthesis. Data synthesis was guided by a preliminary programme theory and included coding the meaning units to develop themes or intervention pathways that corresponded to context-mechanism-outcome configurations.

Results

We found that the interventions produced an effect through two pathways: (a) knowledge leads to changes in stigmatizing attitudes and increases in HIV test uptake and (b) knowledge and attitudes lead to changes in stigmatizing behaviours and lead to HIV test uptake. We also found one competing pathway that illustrated the direct impact of knowledge on HIV test uptake without changing stigmatizing attitudes and behaviour. The identified pathways were found to be influenced by some structural factors (e.g., anti-homosexuality laws, country-specific HIV testing programmes and policies), community factors (e.g., traditional beliefs and practices, sexual taboos and prevalence of intimate partner violence) and target-population characteristics (e.g., age, income and urban-rural residence).

Conclusions

The pathways and underlying mechanisms support the adaptation of intervention strategies in terms of social context and the target population in LMICs.

Strategies to integrate community-based traditional and complementary healthcare systems into mainstream HIV prevention programs in resource-limited settings

BACKGROUND

Global spending for HIV prevention has been decreasing over the years. As a result, several low-income countries, including Nepal, are increasingly facing the challenge to minimize the funding gap to continue providing HIV prevention services to the people. In this paper, we have attempted to clarify why it is important to integrate community-based traditional and complementary healthcare systems and mobilize them into the mainstream HIV programs to ensure access to HIV prevention messages, HIV testing, and treatment in resource-limited settings.

MAIN BODY

First, we argue that the traditional and complementary healthcare practitioners can be mobilized to routinely provide HIV prevention messages to their clients, and, next, some of them can be trained to build their capacity to work as counselors or educators for HIV prevention in the community.

CONCLUSION

These approaches, if implemented, can help continue HIV prevention initiatives and contain the HIV epidemic at the local level in the rural communities with limited cost and resources.