Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-30-2021

Publication Title

American Journal of Men's Health

Publisher

SAGE

Volume

15

Issue

5

First page number:

1

Last page number:

12

Abstract

HIV-positive gay, bisexual, two-spirit, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) have exhibited significant resilience to HIV/AIDS in Canada since the start of the epidemic. Since 2012, most of the research that has been conducted on resilience to HIV/AIDS has utilized quantitative methods and deficits-based approaches, with a preferential focus on the plight of young MSM. In order to address apparent gaps in research on HIV/AIDS resilience, we conducted a community-based participatory research qualitative study that utilized a strengths-based approach to examine the perspectives and lived experiences of HIV-positive, middle-aged and older MSM on their individual attributes that helped forge their HIV/AIDS resilience. We conducted 41 semistructured interviews with diverse, HIV-positive, middle-aged and older MSM from Central and Southwestern Ontario, Canada. From our thematic analysis of our interviews, we identified four themes, which represented personal strengths that fostered resilience to HIV/AIDS: (a) proactiveness, (b) perseverance, (c) having the right mindset, and (d) self-awareness with self-control. This article discusses the importance of these personal strengths to fostering HIV/AIDS resilience, and how community-based resources could potentially lessen the need to muster such personal strengths, or alternatively, cultivate them.

Keywords

Community-based resources; Men who have sex with men; Middle-aged and older; Personal strengths; Resilience to HIV/Aids

Disciplines

Public Health | Virus Diseases

File Format

pdf

File Size

170 KB

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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