Many of the more than one million people infected with the HIV virus in the United States continue to work after a positive test for the antibody to the virus that causes AIDS. As the numbers of HIV infected people grow in this country, more and more employers, co-workers, counselors, friends or family, will have to deal with the compound issues of HIV infection and work. Therefore, knowing and understanding the issues of concern to HIV infected individuals while they continue to work will become increasingly important. To gather this information, a series of Focus Groups were conducted. From the tapes and transcriptions of the groups, discussion items were identified and clustered for each group. They were then analyzed for: convergence across groups; areas of common concern; and inferences into attitudes held by those who are HIV infected. Because the disease is relatively new and because very little data exists about the impact it is having on those who are working and infected, this research project was an exploratory one. It attempted to gain insight into how people are coping with these two issues while learning more about them. Because of the lack of current information on this topic, the groups were facilitated with low structure to generate as many ideas as possible from the participants. The purpose of the research was to supplement existing information about the impact of HIV/AIDS in the workplace. This study changed the prevailing focus of existing research/writing and brought it to those individuals who are both dealing with the disease as a personal reality and continuing to work. In gathering this data, another goal was to provide information that will help make the work-life, and thus the overall quality of life, better for those who are HIV infected.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-8816 |
| Date | 01 January 1993 |
| Creators | Rich, John Edward |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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