Exploring Cultural Beliefs About “That Sickness”: Grandmothers' Explanations of HIV in an Urban South African Context

The role of culture in community beliefs about HIV is important to understand, given poor adherence to treatment and the failure of prevention programs in some contexts. An exploration of such models may yield important insight into barriers to care, treatment-seeking paths, and intergenerational differences in cultural beliefs and practices. Our study aimed to understand South African grandmothers' traditional beliefs about HIV. Three focus groups were conducted with 15 grandmothers from different cultural backgrounds in an urban community. Results indicated a variety of cultural explanations for causes, treatments, and prevention strategies. The lack of coherence and fluidity in opinions in this group suggests ways in which grandmothers may have a bridging role in the clinic that may help to validate and alleviate uncertainty, harmonize the voices of medicine and the lifeworld, and provide greater insight into people's ideas about health and treatment seeking, also known as the healthworld.