The aim of this study was to investigate experiences and perceptions of private · medical practitioners about the implementation of the current death notification form (Bl-1663) in cases of confirmed Aids-related deaths. The study focussed on reporting patterns by private medical practitioners of the deceased's underlying causes of death in BI-1663. The study also focussed on the reasons advanced for the reporting patterns described above. The research method employed in this study was cross-sectional surveys. Self-administered questionnaires were used to gather the data and the target population was all private medical practitioners practising within the Mafikeng / Mmabatho area of the North West Province of South Africa. A response rate of eighty-two and half per cent (82,50%) was achieved. The data were presented in the form of frequency tables and pie charts and descriptive statistics was used to analyse it. The findings of this study revealed that the majority of private medical practitioners either omitted information that HIV / AIDS was an underlying cause of death or reported another condition in BI-1663 during notification of confirmed AIDS related deaths. Reasons advanced for the phenomenon were fears of unauthorised breach of the deceased's confidential information by unintended parties that often led to invalidation of the deceased's insurance and funeral benefits, as well as stigmatisation and social discrimination of relatives the deceased. The study recommends that third parties (informants) should be relieved of the duties of conveying the deceased's confidential medical information to the state during death notification processes. Medical practitioners themselves should submit Part 2 of BI- 1663 that contains the deceased's confidential information directly to Public Health Officials. The study also recommends that the Department of Health should provide formal training to the medical practitioners with respect to death certification in order to enable them to certify causes of deaths in a manner that is useful for epidemiological analysis and public policy. / (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2005

D.Cur. / The nurses who work in the hospitals are constantly in interaction with the patients. As the HIV infection has now reached the AIDS phase, most people who were infected five to ten years back are now sick due to HIV/AIDS compromised conditions. The statistics inform us that mostly young people are dying. This has reversed nature, in that elders are now burying the youth. The HIV/AIDS infected people who are ill are admitted to general hospitals for health care. At present the patients are cared for in the general wards with other patients who may not be HIV/AIDS infected. In the hospitals they are cared for by the health team, of which the nurses are with these patients for 24 hours a day. This study focused on the interaction between nurses and admitted patients who are HIV/AIDS positive. The patients may have been admitted due to opportunistic diseases or any other illnesses. Most patients with HIV/AIDS suffer from opportunistic diseases, pain and stress. Nurses become aware of the patient’s HIV/AIDS status for health care reasons. Nurses are in most institutions the first contact in health care. Therefore the nurses are engaged in established relationships with patient, families, friends and the community for the purpose of the provision of health care services. These relationships entail interaction. The interaction between the nurse and the patients plays a major role in the care of the patient. This interaction between the nurses and patients entails a number of aspects, such as communication, be it verbal or non-verbal. The latter includes behavioural and affective aspects, such as attitudes, the way care is provided and how the parties feel about the interaction. Nursing is a human interaction. In this interaction the nurse and the patient build a therapeutic relationship, resulting in assistance to facilitate the wellbeing of the patient and rapid recovery. The HIV /Aids infection affects the patient as a whole because of the stigma attached to the disease, therefore the affected patients need to be assisted in order to cope with the illness and its consequences. Therefore the purpose of the study was to: • To explore and describe the nurses’ and patients’ (who are HIV AIDS infected) experience of their interaction. • To develop and describe a model that would assist the nurses to facilitate the promotion of mental health in patients who are HIV/AIDS infected. A theory generation research which is qualitative, descriptive and explorative and contextual in nature was conducted with permission from the Department of Health authorities, hospital authorities, admitted patients with HIV/AIDS, the NGO that looks after the patients in the community after discharge, the nurses who work in the general wards and the University of Johannesburg Ethical and Research committee. Pilot interviews were conducted with one nurse-participant and patientparticipant that met the selection criteria.

Human Immune Deficiency Virus (HIV), which results in Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), has many manifestations. Literature reveals that some of these manifestations may compromise the infected individual’s sense of well-being and negatively impact on health related quality of life. As the number of people living with HIV/AIDS disease grows, so does the need for their care. In the early days of the AIDS epidemic, care was primarily handled by special agencies, hospitals and clinics. These agencies have been inundated with the demands of people living with HIV/AIDS, while their resources are shrinking. As it stands now, the total assistance given to people living with HIV/AIDS is provided by relatives and this responsibility of caregiving will more increasingly rest with families. This situation is particularly salient for the rural community in South Africa, which has been disproportionately affected by the AIDS epidemic. AIDS has a tremendous impact on the entire family system, particularly on the individual who has primary responsibility for caregiving. The caregiver must cope with many circumstances that are frustrating and often beyond their control. Caring for a Person Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) appears to be a major stressor in the lives of caregivers, and can be very demanding, impacting on carers financially, physically, emotionally and socially. Given the lack of research on HIV/AIDS family caregiving from a salutogenic approach, this study aimed to explore and describe the sense of coherence and coping of family caregivers of HIV/AIDS patients in the Kwazakhele area in Port Elizabeth. The sample consisted of 50 participants aged between 21 and 65 years, recruited via the Kwazakhele Masizakhe Project. An exploratory-descriptive design was employed. Data was obtained by a biographical questionnaire, the Coping Resources Inventory (CRI) and the Sense of Coherence (SOC-29) Questionnaire. A non-probability convenience sample of adult male and female family caregivers were sampled. Descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients were utilized to describe and explore the coping and sense of coherence of the family caregivers and the correlation between these constructs, respectively. The data obtained from the biographical questionnaire was analysed by using descriptive statistics and frequency counts. Key findings include the following: Results from the coping resources measure indicated that this sample perceived themselves as having an average level of coping resources. The sample tended to rely more readily on spiritual resources and less on cognitive resources. Results from the SOC-29 revealed fairly high mean scores. There is no positive relationship between the SOC-29 and the CRI for the current sample. No significant relationship existed between the SOC and the subscales of the CRI. Suggestions are made for future research, the limitations and value of research were outlined.

This study was an investigation into the clinical judgments made by counseling psychologists when faced with a patient who had major depression and AIDS. Two hundred and eighty one counseling psychologists evaluated one of four vignettes depicting an individual with major depression. In three of the vignettes the individual also had AIDS but the vignette varied on how the virus was contracted (unprotected gay sex, IV drug abuse, hemophilia). In the fourth vignette (the control group) the individual did not have AIDS. Results of the study suggested, that the presence of AIDS overshadows the evaluation and treatment decisions made by counseling psychologists when their patient has major depression and AIDS. Three factors-counseling psychologists' general experience with people who have AIDS, their clinical experience with AIDS patients and how the AIDS virus was contracted-were investigated for possible moderating effects of the overshadowing bias. How the AIDS virus was contracted was used as an indirect measure of clinician attitude toward people with AIDS. Neither general or clinical experience with AIDS patients appeared to have an effect on the diagnostic or treatment decisions made by counseling psychologists when evaluating depressed patients with AIDS. As with experience, method of contracting the AIDS virus did not have a moderating effect on the overshadowing bias. Implications of these results for the evaluation and treatment of depression in AIDS patients, as well as future research are discussed. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

In sub-Saharan Africa - the region with some of the world's highest levels of HIV prevalence - AIDS has reached pandemic proportions. At present, the highest rates of infection are in the region where the main route of transmission is heterosexual intercourse. Although HIV/AIDS is a major concern for all age groups, to date there has been very little exploratory research conducted on the population aged 50 and above. This dissertation seeks to analyse older people's perceptions of health services and their health seeking behaviour in the era of HIV/AIDS. This study utilized both qualitative and quantitative methodologies for data collection. The qualitative data relies on focus group discussions and the quantitative data from the exit interviews. In total, two hundred interviews were conducted and two focus group discussions were conducted: one with men only and one with women only. For the purpose of the study, older people referred to those persons aged 50 years and above. The study found that awareness of HIV/AIDS was relatively high. The majority of older people were aware of the main routes of HIV transmission and also the measures that they can use to protect themselves. An important source of information is public health facilities. Few older men and women perceived a medium or high risk of HIV infection. This is likely to have influenced their attendance at HIV/AIDS services. Few respondents reported ever using HIV/AIDS services. There are a number of factors inhibiting use of HIV/AIDS services including perceptions of health services, stigma and discrimination, high transportation costs and poor interpersonal relationships with providers. For the HIV/AIDS interventions to be successful, the task remains to address these factors influencing health-seeking behaviours. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

M.A. (Community Development) / The statistics on HIV/Aids in this study overwhelm the imagination. It has great social and economical consequences for individuals, families and communities. The generation of between 15-24 years are vulnerable to infection especially women. From the population of about 46 million in South Africa, 5.7 million were HIV positive by the end of 2007 with about 1000 deaths every day. Sub-Saharan Africa appeared to be the most hit by this tragedy as indicated by statistics in this study. When parents die of Aids, the burden of orphaned children is left with relatives and extended families to look after those children. The number of orphans is escalating due to increasing death rate of parents. A detailed discussion on the extended families which includes their origin, roles they play as well as challenges they face in caring for orphaned children is included as well. Challenges include having to deal with grief and changing behaviour of the orphaned children. The goal of this study was to conduct an analysis of extended families affected by HIV/Aids taking care of orphans, living in the Kyasands informal settlement in order to improve service delivery. The main objectives of the study included exploring the needs of these extended families caring for orphaned children in terms of social, emotional and material aspects as well as challenges they face and how they manage to survive. A qualitative method was used in conducting this study with the use of semi-structured interviews to collect information. The main central question asked was, how do you manage to live with an additional member within your family. The main findings in this study were reported which included the strength and composition of assets and the extended families’ resources to make a living and adjust to shocks of life. Family was seen as the most trusted asset in this study by the respondents. Just to mention a few, most of the families owned shacks, battery operated radios and televisions since they live in formal settlement without any permanent infrastructures.

This dissertation seeks to expand our understanding of AIDS activism by adding to the historical register the stories of individuals who engaged in everyday acts of protest through their endorsement of unorthodox etiological and therapeutic responses to the disease. By focusing on the histories of two poorly understood New York City based organizations – the People with AIDS Coalition (PWAC) and Health Education AIDS Liaison (HEAL) – it both supplements and challenges scholarship which has to date focused predominately on the public protests organized by the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). Resisting a common scholarly bias that masks and marginalizes unorthodox, everyday acts of resistance, I map the larger sociocultural currents that gave birth to and sustained their expression amongst individuals living with, responding to, and dying from AIDS in New York City through the 1980s and 1990s. In so doing, I strive to achieve a true social history of AIDS better able to capture diverse expressions of patient resistance than those organized about professional norms and institutional taxonomies. It is my hope that its methodology and conclusions may not only deepen our understanding of the late 20th Century’s most studied epidemic disease, but indeed more broadly inform historical scholarship investigating patient engagement with other infectious and chronic diseases.

"As a partial requirement for Master of Arts (Animation & Interactive Media) by Research Project 25th March 2002, studied at Centre for Animation and Interactive Media, School of Creative Media, Faculty of Art, Design and Communication" Typescript (photocopy) Bibliography: leaves 66-67. Internet access at: http://www.hivaids.webcentral.com.au/

This study investigated the attitudes of mental health counselors toward persons with Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Three hundred and fifty-eight members of the American Mental Health Counselors Association were mailed a survey packet including an Attitude Towards AIDS Victims scale and an additional two questions assessing comfort with clients with AIDS. Demographic information was also collected. There were 255 useable surveys, for a response rate of 72%. The results of the survey indicated that gender was not a significant independent variable in the attitudes of the mental health counselors. Professional and/or personal contacts with a person with AIDS were highly predictive of positive attitudes. Sexual orientation of the respondent was also highly significant as was personal acquaintance with a gay male or lesbian. Formal AIDS training of one hour or more showed a significant relationship with attitudes of mental health counselors toward persons with AIDS, with the relationship becoming more significant at 11 or more hours. The study indicated that mental health counselors are largely uninvolved in providing mental health treatment to persons with AIDS, with 5% of the subjects providing 70% of the services. Recommendations follow regarding preservice and inservice AIDS training and the need for mental health counselors to be more proactive in the AIDS epidemic. / Graduation date: 1996

The purposes of this study were to assess mental health counselors' knowledge of AIDS and to determine the effect of various independent variables upon knowledge. The variables used were gender, professional contact with PWAs, personal contact with PWAs, age, sexual preference, AIDS training, and personal acquaintance with a person who is homosexual. A sample of 358 mental health counselors was chosen randomly from the current membership of the American Mental Health Counseling Association which is a division of the American Association for Counseling and Development. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire which included a 32-item true-false knowledge test on the transmission, epidemiology, and treatment of AIDS as well as general information about AIDS. Chi-square, t-tests and multiple regression analyses were used at the .05 level of significance to determine the relationship between the variables and degree of knowledge. Mental health counselors scored quite high on most of the knowledge questions with a mean percentage score of 93% had a higher knowledge score on epidemiology than females, yet, when the total knowledge score was examined, there was not a significant difference. Respondents who had provided professional services to persons with AIDS within the past year had higher scores for both the sub-section on transmission and total knowledge. Subjects who had been personally acquainted with someone who had been diagnosed with AIDS showed a higher degre of knowledge, whereas acquaintance with someone who is homosexual seemed to have no direct relationship. Although age did not have an effect on knowledge, homosexual mental health counselors had a greater degree of knowledge about AIDS than heterosexuals, and mental health counselors who have had AIDS training have more knowledge of AIDS then those who have not. Results indicated that there were no significant differences in means between knowledge of AIDS and such factors as religion, work setting, professional degree and geographic area of residence. However, there was a significant relationship between knowledge of community resources and level of knowledge of AIDS. The study results were reviewed in light of the literature on AIDS and knowledge of AIDS among various professional and non-professional groups. Implications and recommendations for counselor education and clinical practice as a result of this study are presented. / Graduation date: 1992