Counselling about HIV serological status disclosure: nursing practice or law enforcement? a Foucauldian reflection

Recently, focus groups and qualitative interviews with nurses who provide frontline care for persons living with HIV highlighted the contentiousness surrounding the seemingly innocuous activity of counselling clients about HIV-status disclosure, hereafter disclosure counselling. These empirical studies highlighted that while some nurses felt they should instruct clients to disclose their HIV-positive status if HIV transmission were possible, other nurses were equally adamant that such counselling was outside the nursing scope of practice. A review of these opposing perceptions about disclosure counselling, including an examination of the empirical evidence which supports each point, revealed that the dichotomous arguments needed to be nuanced. The empirical evidence about serostatus disclosure neither supported nor refuted either of these assertions; rather, it substantiated parts of each. To create this understanding, both empirical and theoretical works are used. First, the results of empirical studies about serostatus disclosure, or lack thereof and HIV transmission is presented; as part of this, Marks and Crepaz's HIV disclosure and exposure framework is examined. Second, the work of Michel Foucault on disciplinary and pastoral power is drawn from. The outcome is a nuanced understanding about the interrelationships between disclosure counselling and nursing practice and a final interpretation about what this understanding means for public health practice.