Exploring How HIV/AIDS Case Managers Manage Clients and Their Professional Relationship:Take Guiding Clients’ Self-Care as an Example
Date Issued
2015
Date
2015
Author(s)
Pan, Bo-Han
Abstract
Background: Since the highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART, also known as ART: antiretroviral therapy) was introduced and freely provided for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH) by the government in 1997. People who take HAART on a regular basis have prolonged their life expectancy, and their lifestyles are similar to patients with other chronic diseases accordingly. Multiple and complex needs of care and resources of PLWH have been concerned and intervened by public health sector, along with the expectation of reducing transmission rates of HIV along with syphilis or hepatitis C virus. The HIV Case Management Program (HIVCMP) has been launched by Centers for Disease Control in Taiwan since January 2007, many research has been done to assess effects of this program’s outcomes (such as physical or health status of PLWHs). Simultaneously, we cannot neglect HIV case managers as important agents in the program and their influence on PLWHs. How HIV case managers establish contact with and assist PLWHs’ self-care management is closely related to HIV case managers'' skills and professional relationship. Objectives: This study is to explore strategies or skills when HIV case managers interact with PLWHs, and to examine behavior theories corresponding to these strategies. Furthermore, understanding how HIV case managers establish contact with PLWHs helps us to comprehend how professional relationship influences PLWHs, and what kind of professional relationship is beneficial for PLWHs’ health. Methods: This study was an exploratory study focusing on situations where HIV case managers and PLWHs interact. Data were collected by in-depth interviews. By means of snowball sampling, 13 case managers working in AIDS assigned hospitals and local health bureaus and 10 PLWHs living in Northern Taiwan were selected and interviewed. The sound-recording interview data were transcribed into verbatim draft and followed by open coding principle proposed by Strauss and Corbin (1997) to analyze data. Results: The main findings of this study as follows: (1) HIV case managers (especially those who work in AIDS assigned hospitals) use a great amount of interview skills to establish professional relationship with PLWHs. The skills of “social conversation”, “open question”, “reflexive listening “, and “providing framework” are used to at the initial stage to earn PLWHs’ trust and create an environment where PLWHs are willing to make self-disclosure. (2) HIV case managers concentrate on strengthening PLWHs’ cognition when assisting PLWHs’ behavior change and use of HAART. In assisting PLWHs’ behavior change, case managers adopt an egoistic-oriented standpoint, along with PLWHs’ immunity or disease burden as argument. HIV case managers create or form PLWHs’ antecedents to help them take HAART, which is similar to behavioral learning perspectives. (3) Due to the characteristics of HIV, the invention and effects of HAART, the professional relationship between HIV case managers and PLWHs is flexible in time, space, power relationship and degree of trust. (4) The professional relationship between HIV case managers and PLWHs becomes more intimate or remote depending on degree of trust in their professional relationship. Conclusion: HIV case managers use a great amount of interview skills in every field. However, the proficiency of skills varies within case managers in different field. Therefore, this research suggests that providing related training before working as a HIV case manager is crucial. The strategies that case managers use when assisting PLWHs’ use of HAART is similar to behavioral learning theory. However, the experience and ideas of PLWHs who take HAART receive less attention when case managers and PLWHs discuss about HAART. The property and norms of professional relationship between HIV case managers and PLWHs vary with interaction and degree of trust between them. When the professional relationship is remote, the importance and role of HIV case managers in the program is especially significant.
Subjects
HIV case management program (HIVCMP)
professional relationship
HIV case manager
interview skill
SDGs
Type
thesis
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