The Life Process of Persons with HIV/AIDS in Korea

People living with HIV/AIDS are increasing and the increasing number is becoming a serious social problem in Korea. They are easily blamed not only from the disease itself but because of social prejudices. There has been some research on people's knowledge and attitude about AIDS but little on their experience. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to generate a substantive theory that accounts for a pattern of people living with HIV/AIDS by presenting the process of their life experience after they were infected. Interviews were conducted with 13 males who have HIV/AIDS. With the permission of the participants, the interviews were recorded with the digital recorder and transcribed by the researcher. Memos were made to describe participant's behavior during the interviews and observations.

Data were collected with in-depth interviews and observations until they were saturated. Data collection and analysis were conducted simultaneously. Content analysis was used to analyze the data by identifying code words and related concepts that were developed into categories representative of the life process of the participants. The data were analyzed into concepts, subcategories, and categories with the open coding process. The axial coding was done to identify the relationships between the concepts and categories. The selective coding was done to develop a core category, which is the central phenomenon of the life experience of the participants.

With the data analysis, 93 concepts, 34 subcategories, and 13 categories were generated. In axil coding, a paradigm model was proposed as follows: The causal condition was 'Diagnosis was informed' and the central phenomenon was /holo sagim/ in Korean, meaning resolve alone due to shame or fear of disclosure. The contextual conditions were 'social recognition' and 'negative experience.' The intervening conditions were 'understanding of disease' and 'supportive relationship.' The action/interaction strategies were 'avoiding,' 'looking for,' and 'striving.' The consequences were 'giving up,' 'wants to have an ordinary life,' 'hoping,' and 'hope free from discrimination.'

The life process of the people living with HIV/AIDS takes fear stage, dispair stage, self-awareness stage, and acceptance stage. The core category of this research is to accept they have HIV/AIDS and want to live without discrimination. Based on the core category, three types of people living with HIV/AIDS were found. They are 'give up type,' 'as it is type,' and 'hope type.' First, 'give up type' does not have hope. They have no or little information about HIV/AIDS because they do not seek for it. Second, 'as it is type' wants to live as they were not infected or the same as the present condition. The present condition means to work and meet with friends and health condition does not decrease. Third, 'hope type' expects to have a cure medication. So they try to work hard to become healthy. In conclusion, the life process of the people living with HIV/AIDS is to accept they have HIV/AIDS and want to live without discrimination. This research is to generate the substantative theory, help to change the social perspective, and use the data in the related field.