Keepers of the Secret: Desires to Conceal a Family Member's HIV-Positive Status in Namibia, Africa

Abstract

When people learn that they have tested positive for HIV, they may share their news with a family member; and this family listener may want them to keep their diagnosis a secret. This study extends privacy management research (e.g., Petronio, 2002) by investigating variables related to family members' desires to keep HIV-status secrets. Two studies, 2 years apart, included adult-respondents (N = 1,358) in northern Namibia, where HIV is prevalent. Two factors predicted potential co-owners' desires to keep a family member's HIV-positive status secret: (a) the sense of an environment inappropriate for disclosure, and (b) a lack of efficacy to oppose it. These findings suggest that many factors translated from disclosers to co-owners and from (primarily) Western studies of disclosure to southern Africa. From this investigation, one might consider the contexts that redistribute power so that confidants may limit discloser's rights to share his or her own information.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Our thanks to Rajiv Rimal, Erna Keulder, Research Facilitation Services (Windhoek, Namibia), Nahum Gorelick, and JHUCCP (Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs)/Namibia. This study was funded with primary support from the United States Agency for International Development under the Health Communication Partnership project (GPH-A-02-00008-00) based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs. Most important, we are grateful to the leaders and citizens of Oshikuku and Oniipa for sharing their information with us.