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Selective Disclosure of HIV Status in Egocentric Support Networks of People Living with HIV/AIDS

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Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate HIV disclosure activities in social support networks of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs). An egocentric network study was conducted in Nanning, China. A sample of 147 PLWHAs (egos) nominated 922 network members (alters) who would provide egos with social support. All egos disclosed their HIV status to at least one alter in their support networks and 26.5 % disclosed to all alters. Among network alters, 95.7 % of spouse alters, 59.9 % of other family member alters, and 29.7 % of friend alters were aware of egos’ HIV status. PLWHA egos were more likely to disclose their HIV status to their spouse and other family members, frequently-contacted alters, and alters who provided more social support. In addition, older egos and unmarried egos were more likely to disclose their HIV status. The findings indicate that network-based HIV intervention programs should take into consideration selective disclosure in social networks.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the staff from Nanning Center for Disease and Control for participation in the study and to all the participants who willingly gave their time to provide the study data. This work was partially supported by a research Grant (R01 HD068305-01) from the National Institutes of Health-National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and a research grant from the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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  1. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Maryland College Park, 2234A School of Public Health Building, College Park, MD, 20742, USA

    Chunpeng Zang, Xin He & Hongjie Liu

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  1. Chunpeng Zang
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  2. Xin He
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  3. Hongjie Liu
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Correspondence to Hongjie Liu.

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Zang, C., He, X. & Liu, H. Selective Disclosure of HIV Status in Egocentric Support Networks of People Living with HIV/AIDS. AIDS Behav 19, 72–80 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-014-0840-x

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