Social Support And Quality Of Life Of PLWHA

The spread of AIDS has been an undoubted fact as more and more countries are imperiled by it. Since the first AIDS patient was found in 1985 in China, China has been one of the countries who have the fastest spread of HIV/AIDS in Asia. The social support and quality of life of PLWHA was endangered:the decrease of the socioeconomic status of PLWHA and the discrimination on them destroy their individual support network; the problems in public assistance policy and the development of NGOs bring negative impacts on PLWHA. In the meantime, different populations of PLWHA have much difference in social support and quality of life.Thus it’s of great importance to have a comparative study on the social support and quality of life of different populations of PLWHA, and to have a multilevel, multidimensional and multi-perspective study on the social support and quality of life of PLWHA by the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. Definitely, the different populations of PLWHA include paid blood donors, MSM and FSW. On the social support study, the study levels include individual, governmental and organizational levels; the study dimensions include objective and subjective dimensions—the latter includes PLWHA’s needs for support and their evaluation of support; the study perspectives include social culture, discrimination and its micro context, social capital and public policy. The former two chapters are about the literature review and the study design. From chapter 3, the paper begins to study the social support and quality of life of PLWHA and puts forward the countermeasures.Chapter 3 is about the individual support for PLWHA. Firstly, the paper describes and compares the structural characteristics of the support network, including the network size, network homophily and diversity, the strength of network ties, and the social capital of network members. Three populations have significant difference in individual support network, and as for the quality of network, the highest are MSM, the second are the paid blood donors and the lowest are FSW. Secondly, the paper describes and compares their needs for individual support and their evaluation of support. Lastly, the paper demonstrates the significant difference and problems in the individual support of the three ones, from the points of social culture, and the discrimination and its micro context, the social capital.Chapter 4 is about the governmental support for PLWHA. Firstly, the paper has a review on the public policy for PLWHA. Secondly, the paper describes and compares the government support for PLWHA. The three populations have significant differences in the governmental support that PLWHA received, that is, the paid blood donors are better than the other ones in the governmental support. Thirdly, the paper describes and compares their needs for the governmental support and their evaluations. The three ones have many significant differences in the needs and evaluations, and the lowest are those of FSW and the highest are those of MSM. The difference in their needs is related to the degree of resource scarcity, the social capital and the right consciousness, and the difference in their evaluations is related to the received support from government and their needs. Lastly, the paper probes into the problems and reasons in the governmental support for PLWHA, including the discrimination and unfairness in the public policy and the distribution of assistance resources, the restriction of household registration and the scarcity of resources in the grass root and designated medical institutions because of the medical and assistant pattern of AIDS relying on the community.Chapter 5 is about the organizational support for PLWHA. Firstly, the paper describes the NGOs involved in China’s HIV/AIDS prevention and control and compares the participation in NGO of the three populations and their related evaluations. Secondly, by three cases of NGO, the paper analyzes the characteristics of the organizational support for three populations. Lastly, the paper explores the problems and reasons in the organizational support, including the restriction of ability of getting funds and the damage of trust in NGO brought by the control and contest for the resources, the encumbrance of organizational support under the environment of policy and law for NGO, and the hindrance of obtaining the organizational support because of the social capital and the government’s control for the three populations of PLWHA.Chapter 6 is about the quality of life of PLWHA, its factors and its relation to the social support for PLWHA. Firstly, the paper describes and compares t the quality of life of PLWHA and the definite areas of QOL, and finds that MSM have the highest QOL, the paid blood donors are in the second level and FSW have the lowest QOL. Secondly, from the multiple linear regression analysis, the paper proves that social support, demology and socioeconomic factors, and somatic immunity are the main factors of QOL of PLWHA. The factors in social support of QOL include the individual support network--spouse, the quantity of friends, classmates, workmates, brothers and sisters, and lovers, the strength of network ties and the occupation capital of network members, and the quality and satisfaction of governmental support for PLWHA. These results also prove the results of social support study in the former chapters.The last chapter is about the conclusion and countermeasures which include improve and fulfill the public policy for helping PLWHA, reduce discrimination to strengthen the tolerance throughout the society, and encourage and support the development of NGO to build up the organizational support for PLWHA.