Quality of life and people living with AIDS: relationship with sociodemographic and health aspects.

OBJECTIVE: to analyze the relationship of sociodemographic and health dimensions with the quality of life of people living with the human immunodeficiency virus. METHOD: descriptive and quantitative study. The subjects were 131 seropositive people treated in a specialized center of the Norte-Fluminense municipality, Brazil. A form with sociodemographic and health data was applied, as well as the World Health Organization instrument for the assessment of the quality of life of people with the human immunodeficiency virus. RESULTS: the statistical analysis revealed a significant difference in the assessment of the various dimensions of quality of life by the subjects for gender, education, employment, personal income, medical condition, self-perception of sickness, history of hospitalizations, and bodily alterations due to the antiretroviral drugs. CONCLUSION: professional nursing and health care, as well as public policies in the area, should valorize the quality of life approach, considering the conditions related to its configuration.

Persons living with AIDS in nurses' social representations: analysis of central, contranormative and attitudinal elements.

OBJECTIVES: to describe and analyze the centrality, the mute zone and the attitudes expressed in nurses' social representations of people with Human Immunodeficiency Virus. METHOD: the subjects were 30 nurses from a university hospital in Rio de Janeiro. The data was collected using a Likert scale. RESULTS: the data pointed to a process of representational change regarding Human Immunodeficiency Virus / Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, with the assumption of a more positive attitude regarding living with this health issue. The hypothesis of the existence of a mute zone in the representation, comprising elements with a contranormative character, was strengthened. CONCLUSION: the influence of the dynamics of social normativity on how the social representations studied are expressed may contribute to a better understanding of its structuring process. It also helps in the analysis of possible gaps among the nurses' discourses and practices in relation to Human Immunodeficiency Virus / Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome.

[Health education as a strategy to ensure the human being's dignity]. / Educação em saúde como estratégia para garantir a dignidade da pessoa humana.

UNLABELLED: It is a theoretical, reflexive study linked to the institutional research project named "Nursing Social Responsibility: from the meaning of person to bioethical paradigms." OBJECTIVE: Discussing health education as a strategy to ensure the human being's dignity. METHODOLOGY: It was based on a qualitative approach, in view of the identification and analysis of the theoretical elements obtained in the bibliographic surveys for the foundations of the study constituted as one of the preliminary aspects of the research. RESULTS: The following were identified as theoretical elements: human dignity, its relation with humanization, fundamental human rights, and the international declarations to ensure them; human action; preliminary strategy for ensuring the dignity of the person. CONCLUSION: While health is being furthered through nursing by means of dialogical strategies on health education, the person is being respected as a dignified, free and autonomous human being, fundamental human rights are being taken into account and ensured, therefore contributing to the humanization of the areas where health services are developed.