Hepatitis C, love and intimacy: Beyond the ‘anomalous body’

Lenton, Emily; Fraser, Suzanne; Moore, David; Treloar, Carla

doi:10.3109/09687637.2010.485939

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…The negotiation of safety within intimate partnerships can be reasonably explained as simply an expression of the familiarity and trust that comes with intimacy, sometimes also depicted as an 'equivalent' to unprotected sexual intimacy (Harris and Rhodes, 2013;Lenton et al, 2011;Seear et al, 2012). What was noteworthy among our participants, however, was the enabling role played by the particular types of knowledge participants had about their partners' injecting practices, viral serostatus and medical check-ups.…”

Section: 'Trust' and The Practice Of Partnershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Practices of partnership: Negotiated safety among couples who inject drugs

Rance¹,

Rhodes

Fraser

et al. 2016

Health (London)

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Despite the majority of needle-syringe sharing occurring between sexual partners, the intimate partnerships of people who inject drugs have been largely overlooked as key sites of both hepatitis C virus prevention and transmission, and risk management more generally. Drawing on interviews with 34 couples living in inner-city Australia, this article focuses on participants' accounts of 'sharing'. While health promotion discourses and conventional epidemiology have tended to interpret the practice of sharing (like the absence of condom use) in terms of 'noncompliance', we are interested in participants' socially and relationally situated 'rationalities'. Focussing on participants' lived experiences of partnership, we endeavour to make sense of risk and safety as the participants themselves do.How did these couples engage with biomedical knowledge around hepatitis C virus and incorporate it into their everyday lives and practices? Revisiting and refashioning the concept of 'negotiated safety' from its origins in gay men's HIV prevention practice, we explore participants' risk and safety practices in relation to multiple and alternative framings, including those which resist or challenge mainstream epidemiological or health promotion positions. Participant accounts revealed the extent to which negotiating safety was a complex and at times contradictory process, involving the balancing or prioritising of multifarious, often competing, risks. We argue that our positioning of participants' partnerships as the primary unit of analysis represents a novel and instructive way of thinking about not only hepatitis C virus transmission and prevention, but the complexities and contradictions of risk production and its negotiation more broadly.

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Section: 'Trust' and The Practice Of Partnershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Practices of partnership: Negotiated safety among couples who inject drugs

Rance¹,

Rhodes

Fraser

et al. 2016

Health (London)

Self Cite

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“…The possibility of passing the virus onto others has evoked strong reactions in a number of studies, with some participants citing it as a far greater HRQoL issue than any physical symptoms experienced (Conrad et al, 2006). Women have discussed worries over vertical transmission to children (Temple-Smith, Gifford & Stoové, 2004;Conrad et al, 2006), which in addition to causing possible disruption to plans for a family, can also impact sex lives and relationships (Grundy & Beeching, 2004;Lenton et al, 2011;Jiwani et al, 2013). The knowledge that HCV is contagious, and subsequent fear of transmission to others, forms a large part of the psychological impact of living with HCV, eliciting constant feelings of anxiety and sadness (Hill et al, 2014).…”

Section: The Lived Experience Of Hcv: Onward Transmissionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health-Related Quality of Life for individuals with hepatitis C: A narrative review

Whiteley

Elliott

Cunningham‐Burley

et al. 2015

International Journal of Drug Policy

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“…Specifically, sharing of injecting equipment by couples has been described as imbued with meanings of intimacy and trust and as equivalent in perceived risk to unprotected sex . There has been only very limited research focusing on the experience of living with HCV among couples who inject drugs and the impact of the relationship on decisions about treatment for HCV . Additional gaps in the literature include questions regarding the ways in which couples who inject drugs negotiate decisions about HCV treatment and how these decisions may be influenced by other relationship dynamics such as whether the couple is new or well established, whether both partners have HCV or are serodiscordant, whether HCV was acquired by one partner during the life of the relationship or infection occurred prior to the relationship.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding decisions made about hepatitis C treatment by couples who inject drugs

Treloar

Rance

Bryant

et al. 2015

Journal of Viral Hepatitis

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Efforts to increase the number of people having hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment require understanding how to best deliver services to meet consumers' needs. The general health literature has examined the role that partners can play in supporting health outcomes. This study examines the experiences of couples who inject drugs in relation to knowledge of, decisions about and management of HCV treatment. This is a qualitative interview study of people who inject drugs in couples. Participants were recruited from harm reduction services in two major Australian cities. Couples were interviewed separately. Data were examined using the couple as the unit of analysis and to identify patterns of experience related to the HCV serostatus of couples. Knowledge of HCV and HCV treatment was low and variable but showed some relationship to serostatus. Decisions about HCV treatment were deeply informed by concerns regarding treatment side effects. Positive concordant couples considered 'staging' treatment to ensure that each partner could (in turn) care for the other. People with HCV in serodiscordant relationships may need specific support regarding HCV treatment information. Within positive concordant partnerships, our data indicated the need to support the HCV-positive 'carer' during their partner's treatment. Changing treatment regimens, and their anticipated lower side effect profiles, will need to be actively promoted to ensure that couples understand how these changes affect their treatment options.

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Hepatitis C, love and intimacy: Beyond the ‘anomalous body’

Cited by 8 publications

References 36 publications

Practices of partnership: Negotiated safety among couples who inject drugs

Practices of partnership: Negotiated safety among couples who inject drugs

Health-Related Quality of Life for individuals with hepatitis C: A narrative review

Understanding decisions made about hepatitis C treatment by couples who inject drugs

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