Existential movement experienced by adolescents with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome: a phenomenological study

ABSTRACT

Objective: Human beings with vertical transmission HIV pass from childhood to adolescence, and little is known about how they care for themselves on a daily basis. The objective was to understand the quotidian life of adolescents with AIDS. The phenomenological interview of 11 boys/girls aged between 12-14 years with a disclosed diagnosis took place after ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board at Rio de Janeiro. The Heiddegger comprehensive analysis approach shows that an adolescent?s experience is an existential movement which is marked by childhood and adolescent moments. In childhood, there is a desire to play like other children. In adolescence, there is a desire to be like others in general (in terms of appearance, mood, attitudes, lifestyle, leisure and relationship). Their desire reveals the diagnosis, studying, working and parenting. They say that taking medication and going into hospital are part of their condition. In the double-facticity in their inauthenticity, they feel dominated by the depersonalization of appearing like other children/adolescents. In terms of their authenticity, the singularity of their feelings, difficulties and possibilities are revealed. The existential movement experienced by them is not limited by age or by childhood/adolescenthood patterns, or by clinical fragility. The challenge is conjugating biological and existential dimensions to adolescent care.