Representações sociais da aids entre pessoas vivendo com HIV: uma análise das memórias comuns

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the differences in the composition of the social representations of AIDS of people living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and who experienced different epidemiological moments of the syndrome. This is a descriptive exploratory study with a qualitative approach, based on the Social Representation Theory (SRT), based on a structural approach and theoretical precepts of memory. A total of 384 subjects living with HIV and followed up in Specialized Care Services located in the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Niterói and Macaé participated in this study. A questionnaire was applied to characterize the participants, another to collect free evocations to the term “aids” and a semi-structured interview was conducted. Data were analyzed by the softwares SPSS and Ensemble de Programmes Permettant l'Analyse des Evocations (EVOC) 2005, with the construction of a table of four houses. The interviews underwent a process of thematic content analysis, to contextualize the representational content identified in the structural analysis. In the analysis of the general group, the elements “prejudice”, “fear”, “death”, “sadness”, “normal-disease” and “treatment” were defined in the possible central core of the representation. The first four suggest the maintenance of negative meanings as elements of permanence and memories of this group. The elements “normal-disease” and “treatment” are positive concepts incorporated more recently to the representation and reflect the elements brought in the 1st periphery by the evocations “will-power” and “health-care”. The second periphery has the positive elements “prevention”, “normal-life”, “adaptation” and “medications” and the negative elements “depression” and “isolation”. In the contrast zone are the elements “bad”, “suffering”, “illness”, “family” and “cure”. In relation to the comparison between individuals of different age groups, we observed the existence of many elements shared in the representations of the group with age less than or equal to 40 years and the group with more than 40 years. Thus, it is suggested the existence of a same representation that receives different influences bases on the age of the subjects in each group. The negative elements preserved regarding memories of the beginning of the epidemic in each group are different, being more present in the younger group. It is concluded that the representation of AIDS has elements that are present since the beginning of the epidemic associated with concepts built more recently, which demonstrate the process of transformation of the representation of AIDS. With respect to the different age groups, there is a greater presence of negative elements preserved regarding the memories of the beginning of the epidemic in the younger group and greater positivity in the older group, a fact that may encourage selfcare actions for this group.