DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2015.v03i02.019

Pages: 471-476

Positive diagnosis of the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) infection in an individual causes a lot of challenges to the person and coping with the condition is only possible when the person has the psycho- social support from the relatives and people in one’s social network other than the sexual partner. The selection of the study population was purposive and participants selected by use of systematic sampling on probability proportional to cluster size. The 385 subjects were interviewed by questionnaires. The data collected was analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 12 and the results presented by the use of pie charts, tables of frequency and graphs. Test of significance was done at ά=0.05. Most of the respondents were females. The mean age of the respondents was found to be 33.02 years while the modal age was found to be 30 years. Disclosure to non- sexual partners was 70.9% (n=273) among the study population and it is related to the community support given to the sick individuals. Some of the reasons for disclosure include: failing health, facilitating HIV prevention behaviour and sense of ethical responsibility. Sero-status disclosure was found to have consequences which could either be positive or negative. The results also indicated a significant relationship between disclosure of sero-status, acceptance and support in the community. The HIV infected individuals were well accepted within their families and the community though most of the respondents felt that their condition could only be known to family members and very close friends. The findings in this study will be helpful in the development of counselling tools for the HIV infected individuals by giving an in depth understanding of what makes them to talk to people in their social network about their HIV Sero-status.