Social workers in private practice in the Western Cape : attitudes and responses towards persons living with HIV-infection and AIDS

The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has increasingly become a serious public health threat, reaching pandemic proportions. Against this background, the role of health care professionals is becoming progressively more important due to the multi-faceted impact of the disease on the lives of HIV-infected and AIDS-patients. The psychosocial impact of the disease compels social workers to contribute their services. The skills of clinical social workers however distinguish them from their counterparts in generic settings in that it enables them to create a therapeutic milieu conducive to the successful treatment of the AIDS-patient. Social workers in private practice may however be regarded as being in an even better position to deal with AIDS-patients due to the autonomous nature of their work environment. Several studies have been done both locally and abroad, on the role that knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of health care professionals play with regard to the treatment of the AIDS-patient. No such studies have however focussed on social workers in private practice as a population. Al though this population have sets of skills most appropriate for the treatment of these patients, the question however recurs as to whether they are adequately equipped regarding AIDS-education, and if they do perhaps share similar feelings of fear, stigma and attitudes of discrimination towards these patients as have surfaced in the studies mentioned above. This study therefore has as its main objectives the following: To establish whether social workers in private practice feel adequately equipped to deal with issues of HIV, AIDS and human sexuality; and to determine the degree of correlation among attitudes to AIDS-patients, homosexuals, terminally ill patients and sexuality, and other variables such as experience, gender and knowledge on the subject of AIDS.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Social Development

Year dc:date.issued

1993

Author dc:creator

• Maree, Lutricia Elzette

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Isaacs, G

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14228

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/14228