Citation

Fifield J, O'Sullivan L, Kelvin EA, Mantell JE, Exner T, Ramjee G, Blanchard K, Hoffman S. AIDS Behav. 2018; 22(10): 3287-3295.

Affiliation

Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10461-018-2136-z

PMID

29744766

Abstract

Despite the salience of social support and violence as potential outcomes of disclosure, how pre-existing social support and relationship violence among people living with HIV shapes and influences HIV status disclosure has received limited attention. Following the Disclosure Process Model, this study investigated pre-disclosure support and violence-prone relationships as predictors of disclosure using data from a prospective study of 459 newly diagnosed South African women and men. Most (88%) disclosed their status to at least one person by their 8-month interview. Level of social support was unrelated to disclosure to a partner. However, those with higher levels of support had higher odds of disclosing to family and to others. Women in violence-prone relationships were more likely to report disclosure to a partner than were those not in such relationships, counter to expectations. The findings suggest that the same mechanisms may not explain processes of disclosure across all relationship types.

Language: en

Keywords

HIV disclosure; PLWH; Social support; Violence-prone relationships