Health care seeking behavior of patients with AIDS
Talle, A.; Haram, L.; Heguye, E.S.
Tidsskrift for den Norske Laegeforening Tidsskrift for Praktisk Medicin Ny Raekke 115(26): 3284-3285
1995
ISSN/ISBN: 0029-2001 PMID: 7482462 Document Number: 298559
We describe an anthropological study of the disease histories of ten persons with AIDS in Tanzania. It focuses on the health care-seeking behaviour of these patients. AIDS has many clinical manifestations, and it is for these manifestations that the AIDS patient seeks treatment. The case studies suggest that people with AIDS seek many different forms of treatment, both biomedical and "traditional", and will travel far and wide to obtain the best possible treatment. People with AIDS are usually discharged from the hospitals. The governmental health care service has little to offer them in terms of care and medicine. A majority of the AIDS sick are cared for at home by their own families. Home-based care is an important factor in the management of the disease, but has a number of constraints.