“HIV is definitely not the end of the world!?” Contextual and cultural factors that might cause differences between the patients’ health experience and the professionals’ health perception at four Tapologo HIV/AIDS clinics around Rustenburg, South Africa.

Abstract

Aspects of the health experience are the knowledge of HIV, how a patient encounters his or her status and the cost / benefits of the prescribed ARV regimen. Their knowledge is mainly based in the information given by the professional nurse. In the South African context the belief in traditional medicines and traditional healers is still present. Also, some individual misconceptions about the manners of infection or the incurable character of HIV were found. The Catholic background of the investigated HIV management programmes is, when it comes to condom use, not as present as expected by forehand. Physical complaints appear on a daily basis for the interviewed patients and the most common complaint is the loss of energy and strength. Accepting their HIV status was for some patients difficult and the state of acceptance was doubtful. Other patients were using their status to warn and inform others for HIV and these people. Disclosing is still a hard task for a HIV positive individual due to the still attached stigma on HIV.