Marseille 2007
| Abstract #494 - Coping with HIV/AIDS Care in Families: Some Exploratory Data from Two Developmental Contexts. | ||||
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Session: 26.28: Posters B (Poster) on Tuesday in Chaired by Authors: Presenting Author: Dr George Palattiyil - University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom |
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| Additional Authors: Prof Mono Chakrabarti, | ||||
| Aim: Caring for a family member with HIV/AIDS presents multiple challenges. Carers in developing countries face even greater challenges, due to lack of medical and support services, poverty, and widespread discrimination. Little is known about how family carers cope with these challenges or about the ways that development impacts the process of coping. This study examined the impact of differences in development on the coping strategies used by family carers in two varying contexts developmentKerala, India and Scotland, UK. | ||||
| Method / Issue: Twenty eight carers participated in the study; using purposive sampling, participants were recruited through agencies providing support to carers. A modified version of the Revised Ways of Coping (WOC) scale with 85-item was administered in an interview. Responses were compared in terms of the total number of coping responses used as well as the scores on the nine subscales of the WOC. Differences were assessed using the Mann-Whitney U test. | ||||
| Results / Comments: The scores were summed across all of the 85 items of the revised WOC. The median number of items endorsed by the Kerala respondents was 34 (range 26 to 44), while that for the Scotland respondents was 50 (range 37 to 55). The scores for the two groups were compared and the results were statistically significant (U = 8.00, p = .003). The carers from Scotland used a larger number of different coping strategies and scored higher on measures of problem focused coping, positive reappraisal, seeking social support, self controlling, and distancing/detachment. Respondents from Kerala scored higher on a measure of self blame. | ||||
| Discussion: This exploratory study indicates that carers from Scotland utilized a wider array of coping strategies than did the carers from Kerala. These included direct strategies aimed at dealing with the source of stress, as well as indirect strategies aimed at managing emotional reactions to the problem. Having a wider array of coping strategies available may confer an advantage on the carers from Scotland as they deal with the stress of caring for a family member with HIV/AIDS. Thus it appears that the process of coping with HIV/AIDS caregiving is closely tied to the context in which it occurs. Issues such as stigma and marginalisation, lack of medical infrastructure, and limited availability of social welfare make caregiving more of a challenge in poorer countries. This reality is particularly important because of the association between HIV/AIDS and development. In less developed countries, HIV/AIDS has hit particularly hard and together with poverty creates a vicious circle where HIV thrives on poverty and in some instances reverses decades of developmental gains, thus undermining the very foundations of progress. In many poorer countries, carers assume the burden of caring with little or no support from external sources. In contrast, in developed countries, the advancement in medical care along with the support from statutory services make caregiving less arduous. Together with resources, efforts to broaden the coping repertoires of family carers may prove to be an effective way to mitigate the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS for families in resource poor settings. | ||||
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