Internet e HIV/AIDS: o poder da informação e da desinformação.

Abstract

Since the late twentieth century, health is one of the most popular subjects on the Internet for various reasons. People living with HIV/AIDS are not apart from this trend, being one of the groups of users with most intensive Internet access. This group is characterized by a intense participation in a social movement that greatly contributed to the acclaimed HIV/AIDS Brazilian policy. The objective of this thesis is to identify and analyze the search patterns and interaction with content on the Internet in the daily health of people with HIV/AIDS, particularly in potential developments in medicalization processes, decision making on health behaviors and relationship with social movements. The methodology involved interviews, which were later subject to content analysis, and a virtual ethnography of a closed secret group on Facebook. The discussion of the produced material was divided into analytical categories, whose analysis yielded the following results: sociability produced in the internet helps to reduce suffering in relation to prejudice, both with regard to HIV/AIDS and homosexuality; there are not many welcoming zones for people living with HIV and AIDS (PLHA) on the internet at the expense of a greater supply of spaces for discussion on public policy; medicalization produces opportunities to incur in unhealthy behaviors, however, people linked to social networks have more encouragement to not give up the medication; the reliability of internet content in general has a pattern of access to sites recommended by official agencies of the health sector; it is common to search before or after medical consultations, though negotiations about medication and symptoms take place in social networks; activists of HIV/AIDS were encouraged to participate in political activism over the internet. There is a need to have welcoming zones to PLHA on the internet guaranteed by public policy; medical education needs to cover issues related to the internet and health, such as sociability, compliance, and "digital therapy", prescription sites, blogs and social networks, but should consider issues of medicalization and quaternary prevention as well.