Browsing by Author "Smyth, Laura Diane"

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    A phenomenological inquiry into the lived experience of social support for Black South African women living with HIV
    (Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2004-12) Smyth, Laura Diane; Naidoo, Anthony V.; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Psychology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The HIV/AIDS pandemic is steadily growing throughout the world. Global estimates have revealed that forty million people are living with HIV/AIDS. Approximately 5.3 millions South Africans have been indicated to be living with the illness and within South Africa HIV/AIDS is having catastrophic effect. The burden of the HIV/AIDS epidemic has not fallen evenly. In South Africa, African women have borne the brunt of the illness. This study presents a focus on developing more effective ways of caring and therefore impacting the health of Black South African women living with HIV. Social support understood broadly as different aspects of relationships in which needs are met and individuals feel cared for, loved and valued (Cobb, cited in Friedland, McColl, & Renwick, 1996) was indicated as having a powerful impact on health. For this reason social support was considered crucial in the development of effective strategies of care. Studies examining the role of social support in the management of chronic illness such as HIV/AIDS underscore the ability of social support to provide a sense of health within illness. From within a South African context, however, a gap in social support research has been apparent. Although frameworks for understanding social support as a broad concept were available, social support research failed to provide adequate foundations for understanding social support in terms that could implicate strategic intervention and contribute to the development of more effective strategies of care. The aim of this study was to develop a deeper understanding of the lived experience of social support for a sample of nine Black South African women living with HIV. The study was conducted qualitatively within a phenomenological paradigm. A phenomenological paradigm encouraged participants, through in-depth interviewing, to provide information based on their own lived experiences of social support. The interviews were then transcribed and analysed using rigorous data analysis methods. Initial findings were presented to the sample and then developed further. Final findings were written up as rich descriptions of the lived experience of social support for the sample. Fourteen themes emerged as comprising constituent aspects of social support. Descriptions of the fourteen themes, including health care professionals, partners, family/children, support groups, meeting others needs, story telling, Memory Box Project, media and books, organisations within the community, activities, the community, being involved in research and spirituality, provide rich understandings of the interpersonal relationships constituting the lived experience of social support for the sample. A polarity was identified in the lived experience of social support. Interactions had the potential to be satisfactory and supportive as well as non-supportive. The research findings are discussed within a greater theoretical body of knowledge and considered in light of three contexts considered influential in impacting the lived experience of social support. The study assisted in the development of a culturally contextual understanding of the lived experience of social support. This understanding has implications for effective intervention strategies seeking to purposefully care for those living with HIV in South Africa