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Confronting comorbidity risks within HIV biographies: gay men’s integration of HPV-associated anal cancer risk into their narratives of living with HIV.
- Source :
-
Health, Risk & Society . Aug/Sep2018, Vol. 20 Issue 5/6, p276-296. 21p. 2 Charts. - Publication Year :
- 2018
-
Abstract
- HPV-associated anal cancer is one of the most prevalent non-AIDS defining cancers affecting gay men living with HIV. Drawing on interviews with 25 HIV-positive gay men living in Toronto in 2017, we explored their responses to anal cancer as a comorbidity risk and the necessity of preventative screening. These participants had previously been screened for anal cancer through a clinical trial. The majority of our sample did not initially consider anal cancer a health priority. They relied on narratives of living with HIV - that is, on their HIV biographies - to make sense of anal cancer’s significance given their self-described lack of knowledge. This included references to personal-level narratives of the biographical disruption and revision associated with a HIV diagnosis, as well as reflections on community-level and socio-historical trends in the HIV epidemic. Drawing on these narratives, some started to accept anal cancer as a significant comorbidity risk, while others remained ambivalent. Those who began to accept anal cancer as significant integrated it into their HIV biographies to present anal cancer as a threat to the ontological security they have gained managing HIV in an era of effective treatment and to position themselves as pragmatic, responsible health-seekers. Others drew on their HIV biographies to vocalise resistance to chronic risk and medicalisation. Our analysis points to the fundamental role narratives play on everyday risk perception practices, health decision-making and, for those managing a chronic illness, on securing ontological security and presenting a coherent self-identity under conditions of expanding risks and prevention possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *DIAGNOSIS of HIV infections
*HIV infection complications
*COMORBIDITY
*ATTITUDE (Psychology)
*ANAL tumors
*EPIDEMICS
*PSYCHOLOGY of gay men
*HEALTH planning
*HIV infections
*PSYCHOLOGY of HIV-positive persons
*INTERVIEWING
*PAPILLOMAVIRUS diseases
*RISK perception
*SELF-perception
*DECISION making in clinical medicine
*NARRATIVES
*HEALTH literacy
*EARLY detection of cancer
*DISEASE complications
*PREVENTION
*DIAGNOSIS
*TUMOR risk factors
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 13698575
- Volume :
- 20
- Issue :
- 5/6
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Health, Risk & Society
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 132616883
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1080/13698575.2018.1519114