Abstract:
The purpose of this research was to describe the experience of working with patients with HIV/AIDS, in particular performing caesarean sections, from a medical practitioner's perspective. A phenomenological study method was employed in which each participant used in the research was interviewed in a single session.
The original sample consisted of 9 participants. They were selected by means of criterion sampling from the gynaecology and obstetrics department of different public hospitals in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town. Six protocols were selected for phenomenological explication based on the interviews with the 9 original participants. The sample consisted of 3 females and 3 males, from different cultural backgrounds, who regularly perform surgical gynaecological procedures on patients with HIV/AIDS.
The results were presented in the form of an integrative text, which accounted for all of the individual variations of the experience of working with patients with HIV/AIDS. Out of this text the researcher explicated natural meaning units, specific to each participant, which were used in
formulating a specific description of experiencing the performance of a caesarean section on a patient with HIV/AIDS.
This study concluded with a discussion of the results, as well as a formulation of a general description of experiencing the performance of caesarean sections on patients with HIV/AIDS for all 6 participants.
Overall, this research explicated unique descriptions of individual experiences, and contributes to a general understanding of the experience of performing a caesarean section on a patient with HIV/AIDS.
Operational definitions
• Phenomenology - A department of the inductive sciences
concerned with the facts that form the basis of its system.
• Caesarean section - A mode of childbirth in which a surgical
incision is made through a pregnant woman's abdomen and
uterus to deliver a baby.
• Human Immunodeficiency Vinis- A retrovirus that attacks
and severely damages the body's immune system and for
which there is presently no cure.
• Life-wortd- The space occupied by any one person in the
external, physical world, as well as the internal lived-in
world, consisting of emotions and cognitions.
