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Struggles with Symptoms

Women's Narratives of Managing HIV Illness

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

The purpose of this research report is to derive a holistic view of the symptom experiences of women living with HIV/AIDS. A racially diverse sample of 38 HIV-infected women participated in in-depth narrative interviews describing their perceptions, evaluations, and responses related to HIV symptoms. Findings suggest a pattern to their struggles with symptoms: They experienced an accumulation of overwhelming symptoms, grew intensely fearful of these symptoms and what it meant to have HIV, and acted to protect themselves from allowing the HIV to "take hold." Many women perceived health care contact and cooperation with prescribed regimens as avenues for HIV to "take over" their lives, so they avoided these actions. Exemplar narratives illustrate analytic findings.

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