(Effects of Empowerment Together with Social Supports to Health Behaviors among HIV Infected Persons and AIDS Patients Currently Receiving Anti-retroviral in Sansai Hospital, Chiang Mai)

Abstract

Social stigma and discrimination against HIV infected and AIDS patients result in unhealthy health behaviors. This research aim to develop an activity model using empowerment and social support concepts and to test whether this intervention help improve health behaviors among this population. This study is divided into 3 phases; situation analysis, implementation, and evaluation. The 25 subjects were all males and purposively sampled. The activities comprised of; workshop on HIV and anti-retroviral knowledge, skill development on physical exercises, stress release, and group activities. Quantitative data were collected using interview questionnaires, while qualitative data were collected using focus group discussion and in-depth interview techniques respectively. The outcome variables were HIV and anti-retroviral related knowledge, health behaviors, self-esteem, and expectation to the intervention. Differences in pre and post intervention averages were tested using paired T-test. Qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis technique. The results found that for situation analysis phase, most subjects had problem regarding physical health, psycho-social, economics, unhealthy health behaviors, and inadequate social supports. All participants revealed that they satisfied with the activities and thought that the activities were useful to them during implementation. For evaluation phase, the participants had higher knowledge with regards to HIV disease and anti-retroviral treatment, higher expectation on the intervention, higher self-esteem, better health behaviors that comply to their daily life activities, better physical health, and satisfied on how they could solve the problems by themselves. In conclusion, this intervention using empowerment and social support strategies helped improved health behaviors of HIV infected persons and AIDS patients as well as the relationship with families and communities. This model can be used in other chronic disease patients.