Parents' phases and children's stages of HIV disclosure
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Epidemiology, Global Health, Health Policy, HIV, Public Health
- Keywords
- HIV disclosure, Parental HIV status disclosure, Kenya, HIV disclosure model, HIV disclosure guidelines, Child HIV status disclosure, HIV/AIDS, Sub-Saharan Africa, Resource poor nation, HIV
- Copyright
- © 2016 Gachanja et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2016. Parents' phases and children's stages of HIV disclosure. PeerJ PrePrints 4:e1727v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1727v1
Abstract
Background: HIV-positive parents are challenged with disclosure to their children. Some do not disclose at all, others disclose to some children, and many take years to fully disclose to all their children. Methods: This qualitative phenomenological study was conducted in Kenya to describe the lived experiences of HIV-positive parents and their children during the disclosure process. Sixteen HIV-positive parents were engaged in in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Interview data were analyzed using the modified Van Kaam method. Results: Parents had a total of 37 living children; 15 HIV-positive, 11 HIV-negative, and 11 of unknown HIV status. Parents went through four phases (secrecy, exploratory, readiness, full disclosure) of disclosure; most admitted needing healthcare professionals’ help to move their children through the three child stages (no, partial, full) of disclosure . Most parents were in between the exploratory and full disclosure phases but had taken years to navigate these phases. Twelve children (HIV-negative and unknown status) had full disclosure of their parents’ illnesses, nine HIV-positive children had full disclosure of their own and their parents’ illnesses, and 10 children (five HIV-positive, four unknown status, and one HIV-negative) had partial disclosure of their own and/or their parents’ illnesses. Parents had indefinite plans to disclose to the six children with no disclosure. Conclusion: Despite being challenged with disclosure, parents progressively navigated the disclosure phases and fully disclosed to the majority of their children. However, the creation of HIV disclosure guidelines, services, and programs would help hasten the time it takes for them to fully disclose to all their children.
Author Comment
This poster presentation was made at the 2015 American Public Health Association (APHA) annual meeting.