Becoming a long term survivor of AIDS involved 5 dimensions of adapting
Objective
To describe the experiences of long term survivors of AIDS.
Design
An ethnographic study.
Setting
Florida, USA.
Participants
20 English speaking participants (70% men; 90% white) aged ≥ 18 years, diagnosed with AIDS for ≥ 3 years (2 participants were diagnosed for only 2 y), and self identified as long term survivors of AIDS were recruited through fliers in primary health care agencies and by word of mouth.
Methods
Open ended interviews were conducted over ≥ 1 session in the participant's or researcher's home. Total interview length ranged from 1–6 hours; any one interview was limited to 2 hours. Interviewers began with the statement “tell me about being a long term survivor of AIDS”, giving planned prompts as needed. Redundancy of descriptions …
