Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 39-43).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-59).

Thesis (MPH)--University of Limpopo, 2010. / Introduction: Men living with HIV and AIDS generally do not participate in support groups even though evidence supports their effectiveness as a source of valuable support for people living with HIV and AIDS PLWHA). Study Aim: The aim of the study was to explore reasons for the reluctance of HIV positive men to attend support groups and examine their perceptions and understanding of the benefits of attending support groups for PLWHA Methods: A qualitative descriptive approach was used for this study. A total of five (5) focus group discussions was conducted with HIV positive males receiving ART from Infectious Disease Clinic (IDC) at King Sabata Dalindyebo Municipality in Mthatha Data analysis: Thematic content analysis was used to analyse data from the focus groups, using Nvivo8 a qualitative soft ware used for data analysis and coding revealed 10 themes with their sub categories. Findings: Findings of the research indicate that participants perceive support groups as being helpful to PLWHA. Participants have a broad and positive understanding of the benefits of participation in support groups. Reported barriers to participate in support groups included lack of access to support groups in local communities which affected the distance travelled to support groups, inconvenient and awkward timing of the support group sessions and attending mixed gender support groups which was not acceptable for participants. Personal reasons for non participation included fear of potential disclosure of HIV status due to lack of confidentiality in support groups and perception that support from families and friends was adequate. Recommendation: The study recommends the introduction of men only support groups facilitated by male to enhance men’s participation in HIV and AIDS programmes, and thus create an enormous contribution in the curb of the spread of the disease.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

A group of five HIV-positive gay men were compared with a group of five HIV-negative gay men. All participants were currently engaged in therapy. Participants completed the Session Evaluation Questionnaire (SEQ) and the Session Impacts Scale (SIS) in order to determine what these different groups of individuals felt was helpful or hindering in therapy. Results indicated that both groups of participants found therapy to be powerful, valuable, and helpful in that they: (a) learned something new about themselves or others, (b) changed their ways of thinking, (c) acquired insight into issues, (d) were more clear about their feelings, (e) were able to define their problems, and (f) were feeling understood, supported, and close to their counsellor. In comparison to the HIV-negative group, the HIV-positive group experienced many hindering aspects to counselling. Seropositive participants felt: (a) less understood, supported, and close to their counsellor, (b) more confused, or distracted in counselling, (c) more bothered by unpleasant thoughts in counselling, (d) more impatient or doubting of the value of therapy, and (e) felt more angry, more afraid, and less confident during and as a result of therapy. Implications for counselling are discussed.

Introduction: The HIV epidemic has had a significant impact on the existing inpatient and outpatient health systems. The cost of inpatient care for HIV positive people has been shown to be greater than for HIV negative people and HIV infection has been associated with a higher inpatient mortality. These dynamics, in the face of an established antiretroviral program, have not been studied at district hospital level previously. Aim: The aim of this study was to describe the clinical patterns and cost implications in medical admissions at Helderberg Hospital, with particular reference to HIV infection and treatment. It includes a comparative analysis of HIV positive and HIV negative admissions. Methodology: This was a descriptive, quantitative study in the form of a cross-sectional survey. All medical admissions over defined 24 hour periods were recorded and data extracted from the medical records retrospectively. Results: 165 records were analysed. HIV prevalence was 19% and overall mortality 7%. 23(72%) of the 32 HIV positive patients had not yet accessed HIV services. The median CD4 count was 87cells/microl. The comparative analysis showed the HIV positive admissions to have a longer length of stay (5.9 days versus 3.6 days, p<0.01), higher laboratory costs (R717.28 versus R327.23, p<0.01) and higher pharmacy costs (R40.69 versus R11.72, p<0.01) than the HIV negative admissions. Outcomes for the HIV positive and negative patients were similar (p=0.64). Conclusion: Inpatient cost of care for HIV positive patients in this district hospital is more expensive than for HIV negative patients. Mortality rates in both groups are comparable. Antiretroviral therapy may be contributing to a decreased inpatient HIV prevalence and mortality rate. HIV positive patients are not accessing treatment in time to avoid morbidity requiring costly hospital admission. Further efforts are needed to expand outpatient HIV services, to explore the reasons why people with HIV are not accessing treatment timeously and to encourage rigorous treatment of HIV infected inpatients to ensure optimal outcomes.

The aim of the study was to delineate, discuss and analyze major challenges that affect children between the ages of 13 and 18 in the Nyandeni area due to HIV/AIDS. This exploratory study was also performed to identify the categories of children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. One of the objectives was to provide a descriptive and analytical interpretation of the day to day experiences of children affected by HIV/AIDS. In shaping the sample size, 50 respondents were selected from three wards (2, 3 and 16) of the Nyandeni Local Municipality in the Nyandeni area in the Eastern Cape.The researcher made use of the interview technique to collect data from the respondents. In analysing data, the researcher made use of the quantitative and qualitative measures.The outcome of the study points out that HIV/AIDS is the major threat to children and that there is a significant increase in number of child headed families as a result of HIV/AIDS.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg), in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by thesis in the field of Psychology. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2015 / Conventional psychometric measures, such as the IQ score, have significant limitations in addressing the assessment needs of linguistically and culturally diverse communities. In response, working memory assessment has been identified as a promising alternative to these constraints. It is a better predictor of scholastic success than IQ, and is essential in the acquisition of fundamental literacy and numeracy concepts in school beginners. While there is a lot of theoretical and empirical support for working memory performance in typically developing populations, less is known about its functioning in the context of atypical development; particularly in children who are infected with, or exposed to HIV in utero. This study compared the working memory (AWMA) and general neuropsychological functioning (NEPSY-II) of 273 South African school beginners (6-8 years). The sample consisted of both HIV-infected (n = 95), and HIV-exposed (n = 86) children, as well as an uninfected, unexposed typically developing control group (n = 92). Significant differences were found between the three groups on measures of working memory and general neurocognitive functioning, where the processing component of working memory appeared to be particularly impaired in the two HIV-affected atypical groups. A within-group analysis of the relative strengths and weaknesses of each of the three groups showed that both storage and processing skills in the verbal domain appeared to be general weaknesses, while visuospatial working memory was a relative strength. The former is believed to be influenced by issues of linguistic test bias in the multilingual sample, while the latter is posited to be a consequence of this very multilingualism, which affords these children an executive functioning advantage. The two HIV-affected samples also showed significant deviations in the structure of their working memory when compared to the typically developing control group. However, within-group structural comparisons of a number of working memory models showed that the four factor model comprising separate components of the verbal and visuospatial simple and processing components of working memory was still favoured, even in conditions of atypical development. The study contributes to the growing body of working memory research by presenting the working memory profiles of HIV-infected and HIV-exposed, uninfected children. It also assists in identifying HIV-exposed, uninfected children as a vulnerable and under-researched clinical group which could benefit from further intervention, as well as foregrounding working memory as a less biased alternative in the assessment of paediatric cognitive functioning. / MT2016

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Georgia State University, 2005. / Title from title screen. Roger Bakeman, committee chair; James Emshoff, John Peterson, Gabriel Kuperminc, committee members. Electronic text (100 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Apr. 24, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 90-100).