Disclosure of Hiv status to sexual partners among people who ...

went ahead to conduct in-depth interviews using the relevant tool for categories
disclosed and not disclosed. At the end of each the interview debriefing was carried out
and some questions asked to ensure completeness. Each interview lasted for about 1 hour;
was tape recorded and notes were also taken.
3.4.2 Focus group discussion
The participants were mobilised by the clients’ leader and informed about the study and
were requested to come to the service centre to participate in it. These clients too were
given transport refund fare in addition to being provided with refreshments. The FGD
was conducted with four female and four male participants. A facilitator’s guide was used
for the focus group discussion. Topics discussed were related to the ones for the
individual interviews that were guided by relevant probing questions. The group session
began with a welcome, by brief introduction followed by explanation of the aim of the
study and session rules were established. These included confidentiality bearing in mind
that the session was being tape recorded and not discussing information shared in the
session with others outside the session, that there were no right or wrong answers and
individual opinions/answers had to be respected. After sharing with participants the
information on the Participants’ Information sheet (Appendix 1) their willingness to
participate was sought and the participants signed the Consent form(Appendix 2).
After completion of the introduction, the questions were posed to the group and
discussion proceeded. Each participant was given opportunity to share their experiences
on HIV testing, disclosure, what motivated decisions to disclose and inhibitors of
disclosure, until no new ideas were emerging. During the FGD, the discussion was tape
recorded and the researcher had an assistant who took notes.The recorded discussion was
transcribed and translated then analysed by the researcher.
The participants preferred to have the discussion in Luganda the local language to
facilitate common understanding and expression among participants thus increasing
effectiveness of the whole process. A summary of the main views /suggestions by the
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