CARE AND SUPPORT FOR PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS AMONG THE YORUBA OF SOUTHWESTERN NIGERIA

Despite preventive measure at the local, national and international level, there is
no commensurate attention in the area of èare and support for people living with
HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Efforts yielded so far are based on biomedical perspective
of prevention and cure. Little or no attention has been paid to the psychosocial
needs of PL WHA, no adequate knowledge on the pattern and use of existing care
and support services as well as hind:rances to accessibility. Little information exists
about alternative thcrapy and the network system in choice of therapy. This study
therefore investigates care c1nd. support for PL WHA in Oyo and Osan states of
Nigeria in order to determine availability, accessibility and impact on psychosocial
needs of PL WHA. The study also investigates the hindrances to accessibility of
services within sociocult11ral context of care and support in the study areas
The methods of data collection é~re: participants observation, key infonnant
interview, in-depth interview, focus group discussion (FGD) and case studies. In
all, seventeen (Focus Group Discussion) FGDs, tvvelve key infonnants, forty indepth
interviews and seven case studies were carried out. Fieldwork was conducted
between October 2002 .. Two hundred and _forty pai1icipants representing one
hundred and eighty-four People living with H1V/AIDS) PABA participated in the
study. Content analysis of data was carried out.