Twelve AIDS patients participated in this study. The mean age of the participants was 36.41 years. 58.33% of the participants were male and 41.66% were married. Of these, 2 were illiterate, 2 had elementary diploma, 6 had high school diploma and 2 had academic education. Six of them were unemployed, 5 were self-employed and 1 was an official employee. These people had been infected by this disease for 6.08 years, in average. (Table 1)
Table 1
The demographic characteristics of participants
Participants
|
Gender
|
Age
|
Marital status
|
Education
|
Job
|
Duration of infection
|
P1
|
Male
|
38
|
Single
|
Diploma
|
self-employed
|
7
|
P2
|
Female
|
41
|
Married
|
Elementary
|
Unemployed
|
6
|
P3
|
Female
|
36
|
Married
|
Diploma
|
Unemployed
|
5
|
P4
|
Male
|
37
|
Single
|
Academic
|
Employee
|
6
|
P5
|
Female
|
42
|
Single
|
Illiterate
|
Unemployed
|
11
|
P6
|
Male
|
38
|
Married
|
Diploma
|
self-employed
|
8
|
P7
|
Male
|
32
|
Single
|
Academic
|
self-employed
|
4
|
P8
|
Male
|
39
|
Married
|
Diploma
|
self-employed
|
7
|
P9
|
Female
|
29
|
Single
|
Diploma
|
Unemployed
|
2
|
P10
|
Female
|
40
|
Single
|
Elementary
|
Unemployed
|
10
|
P11
|
Male
|
31
|
Single
|
Diploma
|
self-employed
|
4
|
P12
|
Female
|
34
|
Married
|
Illiterate
|
Unemployed
|
3
|
Analysis of the HIV-infected patients’ experiences of facing the positive diagnosis of the disease by descriptive phenomenology revealed five main themes: emotional shock, the fear of the consequences, the feeling of the guilt, the discouragement, and the escape from reality. (Table 2)
Table 2
Themes
|
Sub-themes
|
1
|
Emotional shock
|
Loathing
|
Motivation of social isolation
|
2
|
The fear of the consequences
|
Fear of the death
|
Fear of loneliness
|
Fear of disgrace
|
3
|
The feeling of the guilt
|
Feeling of regret
|
Feeling guilty
|
Feeling of conscience-stricken
|
4
|
The discouragement
|
Suicidal ideation
|
Disappointment
|
5
|
The escape from reality
|
Denial
|
Trying to hide
|
3 − 1. Emotional shock
Emotional shock is one of the unpleasant events that these patients have experienced after facing a positive diagnosis of the disease. This experience has manifested in loathing and motivation of social isolation.
3-1-1. Loathing
These patients stated that after facing a positive diagnosis of the disease, they developed a strong inner feeling of hatred towards the source of infection. The patients feel hatred, since they hold the carrier as responsible for their infection. “…After realizing I was affected, I felt very upset with my husband, I did not want to see him again, because it made me miserable, I even decided to divorce ….”(P3)
3-1-2. Motivation of social isolation
The experiences of these patients showed that after facing the incident, they have suffered an internal failure that has caused them to try to distance from other people. These patients have become isolated, withdrawing from the community and sometimes even from their families. “…After this incident, I decided to live alone forever and stay away from all my family members. I made a good excuse and broke up our engagement…” (P7)
3 − 2. Fear of the consequences
Fear of the consequences is one of the unpleasant experiences that these patients will face, as soon as they receive a positive diagnosis of the disease. Based on experiences, these patients feel fear of loneliness, death, and disgrace as soon as they hear the positive diagnosis.
3-2-1. Fear of the death
The patients said that as soon as they got the positive test results, they thought that the disease was incurable and would end their lives soon. “…When I found I had AIDS, I was very upset and moved like a dead man because I was really afraid that at any moment this disease might kill me and I would die …” (P1)
3-2-2. Fear of Loneliness
The participants stated that one of the most important feelings they experienced as soon as they received a positive diagnosis of the disease was the fear of being alone. They stated that at that moment, the thought of being excluded from society and losing their intimacy with them was very disturbing. “…The thought that I could no longer have a family and had to stay single forever bothered me a lot, it was terrifying to me when I thought that society could no longer accept me as a normal person ... " (P10)
3-2-3. Fear of disgrace
One of the unpleasant feelings that these patients experienced when faced the positive diagnosis of the disease was the fear of disgrace. They suffer from the perception that the spread of news of the illness hurts the attitudes of those around them and causes them to be discredited. “…It was very annoying for me when I thought I would no longer be seen as a member of my family, I felt I would no longer have a reputation and everyone would think badly of me …” (P2)
3–3. Feeling of the Guilt
One of the most important experiences of these patients in facing the positive diagnosis of the disease is feeling guilty. This feeling appears in patients as feeling of regret, guilty and remorse.
3-3-1. Feeling of Regret
These patients stated that they felt remorse for their lifestyle and actions as soon as they heard the positive diagnosis of the disease, because they thought that if they had lived healthier, they would not have been infected. “…After realizing this disease, I was very sorry for my past, because I really did not have a healthy life. I made a series of mistakes that caused me to get caught. At that moment, I just regretted why I had this disaster …” (P11)
3-3-2. Feeling Guilty
The experience of these patients has shown that after receiving a positive diagnosis of the disease, they consider themselves guilty and complain about themselves. These patients condemn their lifestyle and sometimes even consider themselves deserving of the disease and think that it is a ransom that they have paid back. “…after getting the disease, I realized that I was paying the ransom because I was hundred percent guilty, I was the one who caused this situation with a series of bad deeds, and now I have to be punished …” (P5)
3-3-3. Feeling of conscience-stricken
One of the most disturbing experiences these patients reported is the pangs of conscience. These patients stated that after receiving a positive diagnosis of the disease, the thought that as a carrier they might have contaminated those around them was very unpleasant and greatly affected their psyche. “…after getting the disease. It was shocked and I was just crazy about the fact that if my wife and children had taken this disease from me, what would I do, I made them hapless ... and this as very annoying for me …” (P8)
3–4. Discouragement
Discouragement is an unpleasant experience that patients will experience after receiving a positive HIV test results. Discouragement in these patients appears in the suicidal ideation and disappointment.
3-4-1. Suicidal Ideation
The patients stated that they were so upset with the positive diagnosis of the illness and they immediately thought they could not live with the fact and the best thing to do was to end their own lives. “…The news was so bad for me that I immediately thought that if the test result was correct and I had AIDS, I would have to kill myself and end this wretch life, oh, I had a lot of problem and the thought of having to wait for a gradual death was horrible to me …” (P12)
3-4-2. Disappointment
The experience of these patients shows that a positive diagnosis of the disease for these patients leads to a destructive feeling of disappointment. So that they are completely discouraged from their lives. These patients think that their dreams and goals are vanished and that they have reached the end and everything is over. “…It was a horrible experience, so at that moment I felt my life was over, I had to prepare myself for a gradual death, I was at marriage ages when I thought I could no longer get married, I saw life as meaningless …” (P7)
3–5. Escape from Reality
The lived experience of these patients shows that after receiving a positive diagnosis of the disease, they found that this fact was difficult to accept and somehow tried to escape from the reality. This experience has been in the form of denial and trying to hide from others.
3-5-1. Denial
One of the experiences of these patients in dealing with the positive test result of this disease has been to deny it. In this way, patients believed that the test result was wrong or that the result belonged to someone else. For this reason, the patients referred to other laboratories after receiving the first positive diagnosis of the disease. “…After the lab told me this and found out what the disease really was, I was really shocked and said it was impossible, it was definitely wrong and it is not true ... I could not believe it at all, because I was a professional athlete and this could not happen to me. So I immediately went to a bigger city and there I went to a few laboratories for further tests …” (P6)
3-5-2.Trying to hide
These patients stated that after receiving the first positive diagnosis of the disease, they thought that no one should notice their disease and should remain anonymous as much as possible. “…I immediately decided that no one in my city should know that I got this disease and the news should not be spread anywhere, so I discard my phone number through which our city laboratory communicated with me and I came here to do a re-examination and go to the doctor, and after all these years, I always come here again for an examination …” (P4)