Introduction Youth is a group of people which has been greatly affected by HIV epidemic in Malawi. They are vulnerable to HIV infection because they are at a stage where they are beginning sexual exploration. Youth therefore, need a lot of information and support on HIV preventions, and voluntary counseling and testing. They should be encouraged and assisted to disclose their HIV status whether positive or negative for them to access necessary support system. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to explore youth's experiences in disclosing their HIV positive status Methodology: This is an exploratory study that adopted a qualitative approach utilizing the phenomenological design to explore the experiences of HIV positive participants in disclosing their HIV positive status. The study was conducted in Likuni urban and Nambuma areas in Lilongwe district, Malawi. Ten HIV positive participants five males and five females between the ages 19-25 years were purposively sampled half from each area. A qualitative approach to data collection was done through face to face individual in-depth interviews. All the interviews were audio taped and transcribed verbatim using qualitative content analysis. Findings: The following are the four major themes that emerged from the findings of the study: factors leading to and hindering HIV positive status disclosure, disclosure of HIV status, experiences of disclosing HIV positive status, consequences of HIV positive status disclosure. These themes are in line with the objectives and the conceptual framework of the study. The findings of the study have shown that disclosure of HIV positive status among HIV positive youth is difficult and still remains a challenge. The study established that the majority of participants disclosed their HIV positive status due to their deteriorating health status. Stigma and discrimination was found to be the major barrier to HIV positive status while the positive consequences which include: psychosocial care, accessing medical services, safer sex practices and positive living with HIV seemed to be more rewarding because it brought some relief in their lives. Conclusion: Stigma and other hindering factors were found to be the major barriers to disclosure. This therefore, necessitates the need for dealing with barriers to disclosure because the benefits of disclosing HIV positive status are rewarding and outweighs the negative consequences. This study has made some recommendations to promote disclosure of HIV positive status among youth through Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, National Youth Council, National AIDS Commissions, the Community and further research. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

The consequences of the African AIDS epidemic are growing--not just in size--but in complexity. These consequences are no longer just biological; increasingly, they are also social, cultural, economic, and psychological. In this dissertation, I consider one overlooked consequence of the epidemic by asking how HIV infection affects the desire to have children in a context where reproduction is so highly valued. Taking advantage of a unique situation in rural Malawi, where no one knew their HIV status prior to testing being introduced as part of an ongoing longitudinal survey, I use a quasiexperimental design and in‐depth interviews to examine the evidence for an intentional relationship between HIV/AIDS and fertility. Rural Malawians adjust their childbearing desires in response to information about their HIV status. The relationship--both in magnitude and in motivation--is highly gendered. HIV positive women fear that a pregnancy will worsen their disease. Despite this widely shared belief, there remains a lot of ambivalence: women who are positive, or who fear they are positive, want to live normal lives. For some, that means avoiding childbearing as a strategy to delay the symptoms of HIV. For others, it means having children as they would have had despite what they think it might mean for their health. Male fertility preferences are more volatile to information about HIV status. Men see childbearing as futile if they are HIV positive because they anticipate their own death and the death of their future offspring. However, men may be less likely to translate their preferences into action because--after learning they are infected--they are less motivated to stop having children than they are unmotivated to have children. This dissertation shows that rural Malawians adapt their childbearing preferences to information about their HIV status. There are strategies in these adaptations, as well as hope for a future where the conditions of childbearing in an AIDS epidemic might have changed. I conclude by discussing what the findings mean for fertility, fertility theory, and policy. / text