An exploration of challenges and psychosocial coping strategies associated with couple sero-discordance

Stressful challenges that befall couples with sero-discordance, how they cope, and the implication the two have to the couples' relationships, are not clearly known yet. This dissertation intended to explore the lived experiences of sero-discordant couples, and how they coped with the psychosocially demanding situations. More specifically, this research intended to examine the psychosocial challenges that the couples faced in their day to day life, examine the psychosocial coping strategies that they employed to deal with the stressful situations and the consequent health implications from those strategies. In this study, the researcher employed the phenomenological approach of qualitative research, which was thought to work best when exploring a narrowly researched problem. The researcher obtained a sample of thirty three respondents of either sex, from cohorts of sero- discordant couples (negative females, negative males, positive females and positive males) who lived and attended health care and counseling services in the Dar es salaam City. Data were collected using semi-structured face to face and telephone interviews in which the researcher text-recorded all useful responses. These responses were then transcribed, coded and analysed manually. This study found that most of the discordant couples experienced both psychological and social problems, including those in areas of disclosure, marital relations, protected sex, family hood, and somatic functioning. The couples’ gender and sero-status determined the severity of the stress; dependent positive female couples were found to be highly victimised. This study indicates that intervention and prevention strategies need to target couples in seemingly stable relationships. Couple testing and disclosure need to be insisted not only to prevent sero-conversions. but also the aftermath of late or inadvertent disclosure.