HIV

Therapeutic Dilemmas in the Management of Emotions for Couples after Discordant HIV Test Results in Eldoret Town, Kenya (Published)

The purpose of the study das to investigate the therapeutic dilemmas experienced by HTC counselors in the management of emotions for couples after discordant HIV test results in Eldoret Town, Kenya. The objectives of the study were; to investigate the therapeutic difficulties experienced by HTC counselors in releasing results to discordant couples, to find out the therapeutic difficulties in handling different emotions based on each client’s test results, to investigate the counselors’ therapeutic dilemmas in dealing with anger at the person giving the test result, to find out the difficulties experienced by HTC counselors in handling violence and emotional outbursts among discordant couples as well as to establish influence of gender and nature of training on the experience of therapeutic difficulties in handling discordance. The study adopted the descriptive survey design. The study population comprised all the HTC counselors operating within Eldoret town, Uasin Gishu County, Kenya who were 68 in total. This study adopted questionnaire as the data collection instrument. Thefindings indicated that most HTC counselors experience the said difficulties. The study reccommedned the retraining of Kenyan counselors with the view to equipping them with therapeutic as well as emotional competencies to handle the emotional dilemmas

Keywords: Couple, Emotion, HIV, Therapeutic Dilemmas, counselor, difficulties