AIDS and jail: Social representations of women in freedom deprivation situations

Abstract

Objective: To grasp the AIDS social representations built by freedom-deprived women. Method: Descriptive study with a quali-quantitative approach that involved 174 convicted women in a women's prison in a capital city of the Brazilian northeastern region. A word-association test was applied in October and November 2014, using AIDS as a stimulus. The corpus was processed using Iramuteq software. Descending Hierarchical Classification and Correspondence Factor Analysis were applied. Results: The content that comprises the social representation of AIDS was influenced by the prison context, which was pervaded by a lack of assistance, lack of knowledge, discrimination, and suffering that disclosed vulnerability to HIV/AIDS factors such as unprotected sex and object sharing. This underlines the stigma and fear of the illness, in addition to favoring and supporting negative feelings and a sense of rejection. Conclusion: To consider the use of this representational amalgam to ensure a comprehensive, contextualized care can help redirect practices, motivate self-care practices, and reduce prejudiced attitudes.