AIDS and jail: social representations of women in freedom deprivation situations

Abstract OBJECTIVE To graspthe AIDS social representations built by freedom-deprived women. METHOD Descriptive study with a quali-quantitative approach that involved 174 convicted women in a women's prison in a capital city of the Brazilian northeastern region. Aword-association test was applied in October and November 2014, using AIDS as a stimulus. The corpuswas processed usingIramuteq software. Descending Hierarchical Classification and Correspondence Factor Analysis were applied. RESULTS The content that comprises the social representation of AIDS was influenced by the prison context, which was pervaded by a lack of assistance, lack of knowledge, discrimination, and suffering that disclosed vulnerability to HIV/AIDS factors such as unprotected sex and object sharing. This underlines the stigma and fear of the illness, in addition to favoring and supporting negative feelings and a sense of rejection. CONCLUSION To consider the use of this representational amalgam to ensure a comprehensive, contextualized care can help redirect practices, motivate self-care practices, and reduce prejudiced attitudes