Logo image
Back
African-born women seeking HIV care in Philadelphia: qualitative exploration of a community of practice
Dissertation   Open access

African-born women seeking HIV care in Philadelphia: qualitative exploration of a community of practice

Kimberly McClellan
Doctor of Education (Ed.D.), Drexel University
Sep 2018
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17918/D8PD5N
pdf
McClellan_Kimberly_20181.13 MBDownloadView
PDF Open Access Open Access (License Unspecified)

Abstract

Health services accessibility Women--Health and hygiene HIV-positive persons--Services for Health Belief Model Self-efficacy Education
In the U.S. care arena, both privately and federally funded programs exist to provide targeted HIV care and services. The majority of these programs place emphasis on access to care, especially for programs serving diverse and traditionally vulnerable populations. Despite this programmatic availability, African-born, HIV-positive women living in the U.S. continue to experience care disparity. This study's significance derives from the need to redress the injustice of health disparity encountered by this population. The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to explore and understand the role of a community of practice among African-born, HIV-positive women seeking and obtaining care in Philadelphia. The Promise Keepers are an existing community of practice that gathers regularly to deepen, share, and create a living repository of their knowledge of living as HIV-positive, African-born women. The participants of this study were purposely sampled by convenience from this existing practice community of seven African-born women, representative of five diverse African countries of origin. These seven participants included women ranging in age from 25 to 62 with a mean age of 44 years of age. They possessed diverse family composition in terms of marital and parental status, as well as attained educational levels. The methods of this study included one-on-one interviews, a group interview, and participant observation. Through thematic coding of the stories or "Way Makers" of the Promise Keepers, this study's three major themes emerged: (a) internal perception of self, (b) external perception of self, and (c) community. Apparent through analysis and framed theoretically by Rosenstock's Health Belief Model (HBM) was this study's finding of the relevance and positive effect of education in the restoration of self-efficacy among community of practice members. As voiced by the Promise Keepers, it was the group-mediated education, established trust, and created "safe space" that reduced members' perceived risk of isolation and enhanced their perceived benefit of seeking support to achieve wellness. Additionally, this study's adaptation of Rosenstock's HBM with the social cognitive construct of self-efficacy among HIV-positive, African-born women living in the U.S. presents a novel addition to the subject literature. Through the voiced, lived experiences of this practice community recommendations for expanded outreach, future research, and adaptation of the HBM, along with implications for practice and teaching, are presented. Key words: African born, women, HIV, access to care, disparity, injustice, community of practice, phenomenological, self-efficacy, Rosenstock's Health Belief Model, safe space, wellness.

Metrics

64 File views/ downloads
49 Record Views

Details

Logo image