Preventive Practices in the Elderly & Vulnerability to HIV

OBJECTIVE:

To know the vulnerability of the elderly to the HIV infection in the context of preventive practices.

METHOD:

Exploratory qualitative study, lead from December 2012 to May 2013, with 37 nursing Coexistence Groups in João Pessoa - Paraiba. The Focus Group was elected as the research technique, and the empirical material obtained was subjected to a Content Analysis Technique, thematic modality.

RESULTS:

The elderly recognize the importance of preventive practices, but they face difficulties in its use when their emotional relationships with their partners do not favor preventive behavior, resulting in vulnerability. The elderly showed the population groups most vulnerable to HIV and do not recognize themselves as such.

CONCLUSION:

The complexity of the various contexts experienced by the elderlies of this study indicate the need for more research that allows advances in the understanding of subjectivity imposed in relations that underlie the aging process and the experience of sexuality in this age group.

...This reality runs against a study in Rio Grande do Sul (2007), also with seniors who realize the vulnerability to HIV / AIDS as something distant from the reality of those who maintain stable relationships, believing they have no possibility of contamination, justifying their acts through the fact that they only have one partner, sharing the view that it is unnecessary to adopt any method of preventing STDs and HIV / AIDS ⁽⁶⁾.

Marital infidelity is highlighted in the group and establishes itself as an unfavorable factor to the use of preventive methods, as the lines:

[...] my husband had another wife and child and when he came home he always "looked for me" and I couldn't do anything [...] I left him, because he didn't have just one woman and a lot of people have died of AIDS [...]

The clashes experienced by older women in the group in the marital context does not differ from women over 50 years old in Porto Alegre (2008), which subjected to these situations for recognizing male behavior as prone to engaging in extramarital relationships, not adhering to preventive practices in the sexual relationship ⁽¹⁷⁾.

The unsafe sexual practice by the elderlies calls attention to an individual vulnerability that demands attention to the group regarding strategies for behavior change:

[...] it is different, I do not feel the same pleasure when I have intercourse without a condom [...] I didn't want to use a condom, I'm old school [...] I never used it and never will [...] aged men do not like using condoms [...]

Resistance to condom use by the elderly population is linked to the cultural factor, because when younger, they were not guided towards the practice of safe sex ⁽¹²⁾. The concern is that most of the elderly, despite acknowledging the effectiveness of condoms, do not use them during sex...⁽¹⁸⁾.

  

Full article at:   http://goo.gl/TPcUlZ

By:  Bezerra VP1, Serra MA2, Cabral IP2, Moreira MA2, Almeida SA3, Patrício AC2.

• 1Department of Clinical Nursing, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brasil.
• 2Universidade Federal da Paraíba, João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brasil.
• 3Department of Nursing, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brasil.
• Rev Gaucha Enferm. 2015 Dec;36(4):70-6. doi: 10.1590/1983-1447.2015.04.44787. 

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