Home care for HIV-positive children and their families

Abstract

The present study is part of the final report of a student in a nursing course at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, concluded in 2002. The study was developed in a HIV/AIDS Out-patient Pediatric Unit of a southern Brazilian hospital. Its purpose was to care for children/families HIV-positive, based on a Phenomenological humanistic approach of Patterson & Zderad. The authors made home visits to two children/families. Categories emerged from the data: the need for information, the fear of discrimination, and feelings related to the situation, among others. This experience allowed the students to reflect on the importance of understanding the situation experienced by the families in order to care for them in a more humanized way, promoting their well being regardless of the illness, recovering for them the possibility to be healthy in this context.