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‘So why are you here?’ Assessing risk in HIV prevention and test decision counselling
Author(s) -
Kofmehl Kinnell Ann Marie
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
sociology of health and illness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1467-9566
pISSN - 0141-9889
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9566.00260
Subject(s) - contest , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , test (biology) , meaning (existential) , hiv test , psychology , medicine , social psychology , applied psychology , family medicine , psychotherapist , health services , political science , population , environmental health , paleontology , health facility , law , biology
This paper examines how counsellors attempt to assess clients’ risks for contracting HIV when they come in for HIV testing. Starting with Maynard’s (1989) proposal that an analysis of social problems should begin with an analysis of talk‐in‐interaction, I examine how a client’s ‘problem’ of being at‐risk for HIV is made visible or not in HIV prevention and test decision counselling sessions. First, I analyse counsellors’ use of open‐ended questions as a method for making the problem of at‐risk for HIV visible within the interaction and how clients respond to those questions. Second, I analyse how the meaning of the clients’ risks is negotiated in the interaction as counsellors support or contest clients’ accounts for getting an HIV test.