Sharon M. Keigher

Self-Care of Women Growing Older With HIV and/or AIDS

The purpose of this report is to describe the ways older women living with HIV perceive of and practice self-care. Data are taken from a culturally diverse subsample of 9 women age 50 years or older who participated in a larger longitudinal qualitative study of women who were HIV infected. During a period of 2 years, 10 semistructured narrative interviews were conducted with each of the 9 participants to gain an in-depth understanding of their experiences with symptom management, adherence to medical regimens, reduction of HIV risk, access to health care and social services, and personal efforts to maintain their health. Transcribed data were managed using Nvivo software and analyzed using multistaged narrative analysis. Findings suggest that mature women living with HIV integrate actions to maintain bodily comfort and improve physical well-being with actions that champion and conserve the existential self. Excerpts from their interviews illustrate this dialectical understanding of self-care.

Book Reviews : Women's Health Research: A Medical and Policy Primer. Edited by Florence P. Haseltine and Beverly Greenberg Jacobson. Washington, DC: Health Press International, 1997, 364 pp.,

The book documents the range of strategies necessary to survive at the low end of the socioeconomic ladder and the hardships experienced by this nation’s poor. By presenting a detailed economic rendering, Edin and Lein highlight the insecurity and instability that many mothers must live with. Yet, they also detail the imagination and creativity that these mothers use to meet their challenges and the important contributions made by the men in their lives (who are often

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home through the GI bill or retire and receive home health care from the Veterans Administration-may have wondered about the fairness of a system that provides such benefits only to veterans. Any mother who has lost the family breadwinner-and found herself alone raising small children or caring for an elderly parent or a dying husbandmay have noted that the government does not equate such &dquo;caring work&dquo; with military service. Protecting Soldiers and Mothers explains this gender-biased legacy of American social welfare policy. A 10-year study of the political choices, events, and social movements from the 1880s to the 1920s, this significant three-part sociological analysis reframes some of the most widely accepted assumptions in textbooks on social work policy and feminist scholarship. Part 1 analyses the Union’s antebellum proclivity to create and expand distributive social policies. While European democracies