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Presenter: Patricia Neves Guimarães, MSc in Epidemiology, Universidade Federal de São Paulo

Experience, beliefs and behavior of people living with HIV/AIDS in rural area, Brazil

Authors: Patricia Neves Guimarães* , Denise Martin** , Francisco José Quirino dos Santos ***

* Department of Mental and Public Health -Universidade Estadual de Montes Claros

** Department of Psychiatry-UNIFESP/EPM; Master´s Program in Public Health at UNISANTOS (Universidade Católica de Santos)

***Department of Psychiatry- UNIFESP/EPM; Department of Anthropology Universidade de São Paulo-USP/FFLCH; Researcher of CPES, Centro Paulista de Estudos da Saúde.

Background:
This study investigated social and cultural aspects related to HIV exposition in a context of   rural areas of North of Minas Gerais State, Brazil.

Method:
The qualitative methodology includes open, and semi-structured in-depth interviews with 52 patients (30 male, 22 female), applied at the day clinic facilities and at the patients home.  It considers patients of the local Montes Claros State University’s day clinic for HIV/AIDS.

Results:
Popular notions of the disease contribute to specific vulnerability to the infection by HIV. Aids is perceived as a big city, or a foreigner’s disease, and so it does not belong the local culture. All interviewees were infected through sex, homo or hetero. Rural-urban migration is a relevant aspect of HIV infection in this region. Aids appear as a sort of magical-religious explanation, understood as something sent by malignant forces, or by God, as a form of punishment. All patients attended both catholic or evangelical religions and sects, being common the practice of shift toward evangelism, after awareness of being serum-positives. Among this population, there is no association between Aids and homosexuality. None of the interviewees used condoms routinely. They perceived themselves as persons who broke moral and social local rules of behavior. The most frequent notions about virus transmission were contact with contaminated objects and persons.

Conclusions:
It is necessary to apprehend local cultural notions that might influence Aids related categories of thought among this population. It is also important to focus on local cultural notions when diffusing information about the disease.