144 B. Dibb and T. Kamalesh women have found a greater sense of spiritualitysince the onset of their HIV (Doyal & Anderson, 2005b). Because of the preponderance of women from sub-Saharan Africa living with HIV/AIDS in the UK (Department of Health, 2005) it is important to understand the experiences of these women. How- ever, a recent literature search (Web of knowledge July, 2010) has found a lack of in-depth studies investigating positive adjustment and growth within this group. The purpose of the present studywas therefore to explore the experience of living with HIV/AIDS for African women living in the UK with a view to understanding positive adjustment and growth within this group, knowledge which will be beneficial to health professionals promoting self-help programmes for people with HIV. The question this studysought to answer was: do HIV positive African women living in the UK positivelyadjust to living with HIV and, if so, in what waythis adjustment may occur? Method As the aims of this studywere explorative a qualita- tive design was employed using interpretative phe- nomenological analysis (IPA) to analyse the data and so understand the individual’s experience. Sampling and recruitment Participants were recruited using opportunistic and snowball sampling (via referral) through a charity offering support to people with an HIV-positive diagnosis. Criteria for inclusion, apart from being diagnosed HIV-positive for 6 months, were being born and raised to African parents in Africa until at least age 12 and a fluencyin spoken English. Participants Using the IPA framework the participants consisted of a homogenous sample of 12 women (six Ugandans and six Zimbabweans). Participants’ ages ranged Table 1. Interview questions. from 32 to 60 years (mean: 46.5 years). All had contracted HIV through heterosexual intercourse and had been diagnosed 3 16 years ago (mean: 7 years). All were on HIV medication. Participants had lived in the UK between 4 and 15 years (mean: 7.5 years). Eleven participants had children; 11 had completed high school and five had a college education. Seven participant’s applications for residencywere being reviewed bythe Home Office, two were awaiting residencypapers, and three had residency. Procedure After receiving ethical approval, semi-structured interviews (conducted byTK) were used to explore each woman’s personal experience of living with HIV. The interview schedule followed an exploratorypath asking the participants what it was like to live with HIV/AIDS, with a focus on whether theyfelt they had changed as a result of HIV, and in what waythis change had occurred (see Table 1 for a list of the questions asked). As smaller sample sizes are needed with a qualitive studythan with quantitative studies, in order to achieve data saturation twelve participants were recruited. The interviews took place in the participants’ homes and lasted between 45 and 90 minutes. Participants received a £10 voucher for their time. Data analysis Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA; Smith, Jarman, & Osborn, 1999) provides an in-depth understanding of the participants’ experience and does not aim to generalise the findings to all individuals. It has been used successfullyin sexual health studies (Flowers et al., 2006) and was viewed as the most appropriate method of analysis for this study. IPA allows the inductive development of themes within and across interviews. After an in-depth reading and rereading of the transcripts, initial coding (conducted byTK) identified groups of meaning within the text. Categories of meaning were Can you tell me about what it’s like living with HIV? Do you feel that having HIV has had an impact on your life? In what way? What was it like when you first found out? Do you think having HIV has changed you as a person in anyway? How? Do you do anything differently now? What would you say are the most important things in your life at the moment? How is this different to how you felt before? Some people also say there have been positive aspects about their diagnosis, would you agree with that? (If yes) Can you tell me what some of these positive experiences have been?