Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

In the last decades, the scientific community has been tremendously successful in developing lifesaving treatments for HIV. However, the new characterization of HIV as a long-term manageable chronic illness has yet to be adapted to the healthcare system, resulting in good quality specialized HIV-care but gaps in primary care for people living with HIV. This is especially problematic for women, who now account for over a quarter of HIV-infections in Canada, and for whom current unmet care needs include gynaecological screening, contraceptive counselling, pregnancy planning, and menopause management - care needs which may be best addressed by primary care providers. Given the promise of Patient-Centred Care approaches in primary care, and the pressing need to develop better care strategies to meet the needs of women living with HIV, the Canadian HIV Women's Sexual and Reproductive Health Cohort Study (CHIWOS) was established in 2011, with the aim of studying whether a Women-Centred Care approach may improve health outcomes for women living with HIV in Canada. In concordance with our Community-Based Participatory Research approach, we conducted a qualitative inquiry on the meaning and value of Women-Centred Care from the perspective of the women seeking and utilizing HIV-care services in Canada. Focus group discussions, co-led by peer researchers, were conducted with 77 women across Canada, and garnered accounts of HIV-care, unmet healthcare needs, and visions of Women-Centred Care. In this abstract we present our findings from these focus groups, which detail women's care needs as patients, people, women, and finally women living with HIV, and the attention to complexity and dignity required to deliver effective quality care for this population. This research furthers our understanding of what defining features of care best support women living with HIV, towards the creation of a gendered Patient-Centred Care framework.