Social representations of the elderly about HIV/AIDS.

OBJECTIVE

to understand the representational content about HIV/AIDS among seropositive elderly people.

METHOD: a qualitative study carried out from April to May 2017, in the city of Recife/PE, with 48 seropositive elderly people, through a semi-structured interview. The Social Representations Theory was used as theoretical framework and the method of lexical analysis through IRAMUTEQ software.

RESULTS

it was observed that the social representation of HIV is structured around the proximity of death and that it is a disease of restricted groups, leading to feelings of sadness. On the other hand, it is evident a transformation of the representation linked to the reified knowledge, leading to the process of naturalization of the disease.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS: it is concluded that the elderly living with HIV, when they undergo a process of reframing about the disease, become more flexible to deal with their condition of seropositivity.