IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v51y2000i2p251-264.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Lay constructions of HIV and complementary therapy use

Author

Listed:
  • Pawluch, Dorothy
  • Cain, Roy
  • Gillett, James

Abstract

This study examines the meanings that individuals with HIV attach to their use of complementary therapies. A qualitative analysis of 66 interviews completed between 1993 and 1998 showed that complementary therapies represent different things for these individuals -- a health maintenance strategy, a healing strategy, an alternative to Western medicine, a way of mitigating the side-effects of drug therapies, a strategy for maximizing quality of life, a coping strategy, and a form of political resistance. We found that the meanings individuals ascribe to complementary therapies and the benefits they expect to derive from them are not idiosyncratic, but linked to social characteristics -- sexuality, ethnocultural background, gender -- and to beliefs about health and illness, values and experiences. We found as well that these meanings are neither mutually exclusive nor fixed. The therapies often appeal to individuals on different levels and their appeal may change over time.

Suggested Citation

  • Pawluch, Dorothy & Cain, Roy & Gillett, James, 2000. "Lay constructions of HIV and complementary therapy use," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 251-264, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:51:y:2000:i:2:p:251-264
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(99)00450-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Braun, Virginia, 2008. ""She'll be right"? National identity explanations for poor sexual health statistics in Aotearoa/New Zealand," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(11), pages 1817-1825, December.
    2. Doran, Evan & Robertson, Jane & Henry, David, 2005. "Moral hazard and prescription medicine use in Australia--the patient perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(7), pages 1437-1443, April.
    3. Thomas, Felicity & Aggleton, Peter & Anderson, Jane, 2010. "'Experts', 'partners' and 'fools': Exploring agency in HIV treatment seeking among African migrants in London," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 736-743, March.
    4. Hök, Johanna & Wachtler, Caroline & Falkenberg, Torkel & Tishelman, Carol, 2007. "Using narrative analysis to understand the combined use of complementary therapies and bio-medically oriented health care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(8), pages 1642-1653, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:51:y:2000:i:2:p:251-264. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.