- Collection:
- Atlanta University and Clark Atlanta University Theses and Dissertations
- Title:
- Speaking our truth: African American women and HIV/AIDS treatment adherence, 2007
- Creator:
- Dobson, Kimerley A.
- Date of Original:
- 2007-07-01
- Subject:
- Degrees, Academic
Dissertations, Academic - Location:
- United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Atlanta, 33.749, -84.38798
- Medium:
- theses
- Type:
- Text
- Format:
- application/pdf
- Description:
- The primary purpose of this study is to describe the illness representations held by HIV-infected African-American women and their adherence to HIV treatment therapy. While Womanist theory served as the conceptual framework, Howard Leventhal's Self- regulatory Illness Representation Theory is the primary conceptual framework because this study examined illness representations and adherence patterns of HIV-infected African-American women enrolled in a public health clinic in metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia. A case study research design was chosen to explore the women's illness representations and their HIV treatment adherence patterns while retaining the holistic and meaningful characteristics of their individual realities. The beliefs held by women affected how they coped. The results of this study revealed that the women have a non-biomedical belief about their illness. The women's understandings of HIV are primarily mediated by a traditional belief in God. The majority of the women acknowledge that their belief in God and religious practice guide their decision making regarding adherence to HIV treatment therapy.
- External Identifiers:
- Metadata URL:
- http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12322/cau.td:2007_dobson_kimerley_a.pdf
- Rights Holder:
- Clark Atlanta University
- Holding Institution:
- Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library
- Rights:
-
