ORIGINAL PAPER How Treatment Partners Help: Social Analysis of an African Adherence Support Intervention

The Author(s) 2011. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Treatment partnering is an adherence inter-vention developed in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper describes the additional social functions that treatment partners serve and shows how these functions contribute to health and survival for patients with HIV/AIDS. Ninety-eight minimally structured interviews were conducted with twenty pairs of adult HIV/AIDS patients (N = 20) and treatment partners (N = 20) treated at a public HIV-care setting in Tanzania. Four social functions were identified using inductive, category construction and interpretive methods of analysis: (1) encouraging disclosure; (2) com-bating stigma; (3) restoring hope; and (4) reducing social difference. These functions work to restore social con-nections and reverse the isolating effects of HIV/AIDS, strengthening access to essential community safety nets. Besides encouraging ARV adherence, treatment partners contribute to the social health of patients. Social health as well as HIV treatment success is essential to survival for persons living with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa