The AIDS Challenge

O'Brien describes the coping strategies that long-term survivors of HIV employ to promote positive quality of life. She also explores the impact of the virus on family members, friends, and caregivers; their strategies for dealing with HIV are identified as well.

This book has two unique features. First, the creative coping strategies developed to deal with HIV are explored primarily through the words of those living and/or working with the virus. O'Brien utilized more than 350 hours of tape-recorded interviews to glean the insightful and poignant anecdotes which describe their walk with HIV. Second, the HIV-positive individuals described are long-term survivors of the virus. Although that population consists primarily of gay men, the case is made that they are the first group of people with HIV to experience long-term survival; thus, their coping strategies and those of the people close to them provide a model for others moving into the survivor category. An important resource for nurses, social workers, chaplains, others in fields working with HIV/AIDs patients, and their families and friends.