HIV Disclosure Experiences among Women with HIV/AIDS in Jakarta, Indonesia

The trend of feminization in HIV/AIDS cases in Indonesia and the critical role of disclosure for HIV/AIDS intervention programs lead to the importance of conducting research related to HIV disclosure experiences among women and how they influence social support and ART utilization. This study was carried out using a quantitative, cross-sectional approach. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 142 HIV positive women, living in Jakarta, who already disclosed their HIV status to at least one person. This study found that women primarily disclosed to and gained support from their family members. The most common reason for the first disclosure was to have close and supportive relationships while the most common reason for the second disclosure was to catharsis. Specifically, the multiple linear regressions showed that female family member, male family member, partner and relative were four predictors of the types of instrumental support. Only female family member was the only predictor for support satisfaction. The multiple linear regressions also showed that some reasons for disclosure were predictors of all the type of support and support satisfaction. Even though this study found that there were no associations between types of support and support satisfaction with retention to HIV care, nevertheless, all the support variables were predictors of ARV adherence. In addition, female family member was the sole predictor of ARV adherence among the confidant’s categories. There are some recommendations that can be applied to HIV programs in Indonesia, such as involving the significant others on the HIV programs targeting women, psychological counselling, family-focused intervention programs and community based intervention program. Further intervention research and multi-disciplinary research should combine quantitative and qualitative methods in order to study many possible areas related to HIV disclosure and interventions.