Social representations of adolescents about HIV contraction risk

Representaciones sociales de los adolescentes acerca del riesgo de contraer VIH

Objective: Understand the social representations of HIV through the perceptions, beliefs and attitudes of adolescents schooled in grades 9, 10 and 11 of high school. Materials and methods: Participants were applied a semi-structured interview, taking into account criteria of objectification and anchoring, to identify the process of formation of social representations, and the dimensions of information, representation field and attitudes, taking as a theoretical basis Serge Moscovici’s and Jodelet’s approaches and contributions of Mora to the study of social representations. Results: Perception of progressive deterioration (physical, social and family), rejection, discrimination and stigmatization; beliefs of decreased quality of life, rapid death, higher in those who have risk sexual relations; attitudes of rejection towards the HIV carriers and promiscuous people. Social representations of the risk about contracting HIV are organized around poorly informed concepts about the disease, biases related to rejection and avoidance of contact, and misconceptions about contagion. Conclusions: Objectification is related to the social and educational context, so representation is mediated by specialized knowledge and common sense. In anchorage, attitude of rejection before transmission prevails, which restricts the familiarization with the disease, limits the contact and the gradual acceptance of infected person. Misconceptions about forms of contagion, produce rejection attitudes, because adolescents find it difficult to make habitual strange things (anchoring).