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We Broke the Rules: Building the Foundations of HIV Nursing

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Providing HIV Care: Lessons from the Field for Nurses and Healthcare Practitioners

Abstract

HIV nursing has had, and will continue to have, a critical role in the treatment and care of people living with HIV (PLHIV). In the 1980s and 1990s, HIV was a devastating, stigmatised disease with no cure. In response to this crisis, HIV nurses transformed the fundamentals of care. This narrative examines how and why these changes occurred and tells the stories of the nurses’ experiences on the front line.

It starts in the 1960s with the radicalising social, cultural, and economic landscape which stimulated nurse academics to challenge the biomedical model and develop new nursing theories and innovative practices based on holism. These theories inspired the new HIV nurses to develop nurse–patient partnerships based in person-centred models which became the central element of the HIV nursing legacy.

As HIV transformed into a chronic condition with new treatments nurses transformed their role to meet the changing needs of PLHIV, never losing sight of the person-centred approach.

This history has implications for today’s HIV nurses. It is a history we share with those diagnosed before treatment was available, some of whom are still alive today. We witnessed their pain and loss, their anger and determination, their humour; all of which has shaped their journey and ours.

The movement to confront the HIV epidemic … has radically changed the world’s understanding and response to health challenges and has been said to have created the concept of global health. [1]

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Imperial College London, London, UK

    Jane Bruton

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  1. Jane Bruton
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nursing, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

    Michelle Croston

  2. Independent Consultant in Global Health, Sheffield, UK

    Ian Hodgson

Books, Documentaries and Films of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s

Books, Documentaries and Films of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s

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Bruton, J. (2021). We Broke the Rules: Building the Foundations of HIV Nursing. In: Croston, M., Hodgson, I. (eds) Providing HIV Care: Lessons from the Field for Nurses and Healthcare Practitioners. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71295-2_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71295-2_1

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