[Representations and illness narratives in migrants HIV-patients originating from West Africa]

Migrants, especially from West African countries, are highly affected by HIV in France but their representations of the illness have not been much studied. The aim of this study is to explore their representations of HIV infection through their explanatory models and etiologic theories.

Nine interviews of patients living with HIV from West African countries and migrants in France have been carried out with the Mac Gill Illness Narrative Interview, an interview schedule to elicit meanings and modes of reasoning related to illness experience. The illness narratives have then been analyzed through a method from medical anthropology.

According to this study, AIDS remains a shameful illness, related to immoral behaviors such as unfaithfulness, intercourses with prostitutes or a high number of partners. Causality of illness is often related to the migration story. Stigmatization of people living with HIV is prevailing in the personal experience of the illness, which leads to underestimate oneself, to stop making plans for the future and brings social loneliness because of the secret around this illness.

Like any illness, diagnosis of HIV infection involves questions: "Why me? Why now?" requiring an interpretation to recreate coherence in patients' lives. For medicals, caring about illnesses representations of the patients helps therapeutic relationship. Complementary surveys lead by a multidisciplinary team and an interpreter at different times could improve understandings of global representations of illness and their evolution.