Abstract:
Human Immune Deficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)
place a significant burden on the caregivers for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Caring
for PLWHA is usually carried out by community members who are recruited from the same
community as the PLWHA. These community members are trained to provide services as
volunteer caregivers. The caregivers face various challenges in the process of giving care to
PLWHA, often inadequately assisted by relatives, friends, neighbours, private individuals,
grassroots traditional and political leaders. This results in caregivers being overwhelmed by
their responsibilities, making their coping process even more difficult. The aim of this study
was to explore the challenges experienced by community home-based caregivers (CHBCGs)
caring for people living with HIV/AIDS at Tsianda Village, in Makhado Municipality, South
Africa. This study adopted a qualitative explorative design. The population for this study were
all CHBCGs caring for PLWHA. Non probability purposive sampling was used to select the
community home-based caregivers working at Tsianda Community Home-based care
organisation. In-depth interviews, using a semi-structured interview guide, was conducted by
the researcher and a voice recorder were used to record data from participants. Data
saturation was reached at the 11th participant. This is when the participants were no longer
giving new information. The data collected from the study were analysed thematically. The
following themes emerged from data analysis: Challenges for community home-based
caregivers, perceived support for community home-based caregivers, coping strategies for
community home-based caregivers. Measures to ensure trustworthiness and the code of
ethics to protect the rights of the participants was applied and observed. The findings of the
study revealed that community home-based caregivers experience various challenges which
have a negative impact on their personal life, as well as their physical and psychological wellbeing.
Community home-based care also uses different strategies to cope with these
challenges. It was concluded that the community home-based caregivers are experiencing
serious shortages of personal protective equipment, which makes them work with the fear of
being infected with the diseases. It is recommended that the DOH should take it into
consideration to provide the CHBCG’s organization with enough personal protective
equipment for their safety and working without fear of being infected with deadly viruses.
