COPING WITH THE THREAT OF AIDS: NURSES AND THE RISK OF CONTAGION (IMMUNE DEFICIENCY).
Contributors: University of Alberta.
Published: 1991
Number of pages: 372
Subjects: Sociology, Public and Social Welfare.; Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Occupational Health and Safety.
Description: This thesis examines how nurses cope with their concerns about acquiring human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) when caring for persons with AIDS (PWAs). The study employs a qualitative research design. In-depth interviews were conducted with thirteen nurses who had cared for PWAs in an acute-care hospital in a large Western Canadian city. Data were analyzed using the constant comparative methodology of grounded theory.

The findings suggest that the risk of contagion threatens not only the nurses' lives and health but also their relationships with significant others and their professional self-esteem. Nurses' perceptions of risk relate to the seriousness of the consequences of exposure to HIV and the uncertainties inherent in the risk situation. The dominant theme underlying nurses' efforts to cope with the risk of contagion is constructing a sense of control over exposure. Nurses' coping efforts are related to five categories viewed as coping tasks: making risk "manageable", making risk "meaningful", maintaining professional self-esteem, managing others' responses to nurses caring for PWAs and, for some nurses, coping with "actual" exposure. "Manageability" results from the use of behavioral and cognitive coping strategies that address needs for reassurance and vigilance and that allow nurses both to reduce and to tolerate uncertainty. The "meaningfulness" of risk derives from the nurses' professional commitment to care and from the satisfaction resulting from the relationships developed with patients. A threat to professional self-esteem involved managing derivative emotions of guilt, shame and embarrassment. Nurses cope with others' concerns by reassuring them of minimal risk and convincing them of the value of the nurses work. Actual exposures to HIV-infected body fluids represent a disconfirmation of the sense of control over risk. When exposed, nurses attempt to reestablish a sense of control in terms of risk manageability and meaningfulness.

The thesis concludes with implications for further research and suggests that the insights from this study can be used to provide support to nurses that will enhance the manageability and meaningfulness of their work.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-10, Section: A, page: 3691.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA (CANADA), 1991.

School code: 0351.