Barcelona 2013
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| Abstract #404 - E-Posters English | ||||
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Session: 50.16: E-Posters English (Poster) on Sunday in Chaired by Authors: Presenting Author: Mrs Adeline TOULLIER - AIDES, France |
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| Additional Authors: Dr. Jordi Casabona, Sra Cristina Sanclemente, Dra. Anna Esteve, Dra. Victoria Gonzalez, Grupo HIVITS TS, | ||||
| Aim: Ageing among PLWHA becomes a subject of rising interest for society and social sciences, since the number of PLWHA aged 50 and older in France is significantly increasing. This new reality generates questions and concerns that must be studied in order to anticipate and put in practice policies and activities implemented by health institutions and HIV/Aids organizations. In 2011, AIDES, a French HIV community-based organization launched a qualitative study, funded by AG2R La Mondiale under the aegis of the Fondation de France, aiming to describe the current psychosocial and economic situation and identify the current and future needs of PLWHA aged 50 and older who are catered for at AIDES. | ||||
| Method / Issue: 52 PLWHA (30 women, 22 men) >50 years were interviewed during 2012. All the interviews were registered and transcribed. An interview guide was created ?ad hoc? in order to collect information regarding a wide range of topics. A textual data analysis of the corpus was conducted. | ||||
| Results / Comments: Median age of respondents was 53 (range 50-71). 34 people declared being heterosexuals, 16 MSM and 2 declared being bisexuals. 38 people were diagnosed before 1996. Concerning their economic situation, 32 lived below the poverty line. As for the content analysis, four main issues emerged: solitude, lack of sexuality, poverty and poor health status. All these subjects could be common to other populations who are getting older, nevertheless, we could recognize on the discourse of PLWHA, the particular impact that HIV had had on their lives and on the way of experiencing ageing. Thus, it must be noted that HIV appears for some respondents as a worsening element in a life already disjointed or characterizes an ?after?, a break point in comparison with their previous life. In other cases, HIV was described as having little influence on the life course or producing a radical and positive change. Not having children, being homosexual, being a migrant, being discriminated against and bereavement appeared as factors related to feeling isolated and lonely. On the other hand, being close to an association appeared as an effective way of (re)creating social bonds. In the second place, sexuality appeared to be strongly altered because of aging and HIV (e.g. loss of libido, change of physical appearance and fear to transmit HIV). Thirdly, financial difficulties of respondents came out when PLWHA expressed their current and future worries, since these difficulties weaken their standard of life, the quality of care (e.g. some drugs are not affordable), and are very likely to get worse. Finally, regarding health status, respondents stated multiple health problems (e.g. tiredness, pain, cancers and cardiovascular diseases). For all these issues, it is unclear what can be allocated to ageing, HIV and/or HIV treatment. | ||||
| Discussion: These results allowed to identify the needs of PLWHA>50 years in order to jointly build adequate responses to this complex and multi-factorial reality. Ageing constitutes a new phase in an ongoing process in a generation that hardly thought to survive. | ||||
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