A Social Ecological Approach to Exploring Barriers to Accessing Sexual and Reproductive Health Services among Couples Living with HIV in Southern Malawi
Table 2
Coding process from text to theme.
Text
Subcategory
Categories
Code
Theme
“You know, we can not go there freely because it is an embarrassing situation since we are advised that a person who has the virus, must not become pregnant.” (male from patrilineal community)
Embarrassment
Attitudes
Individual
“The problem is that they do not help us and they say ‘Just leave them they will know what to do themselves.’ They also accuse my wife of re-marrying and having children in the new marriage following the death of her first husband from AIDS.” (male from matrilineal community)
Disapproval from kin
Family
Interpersonal
“We leave home for the ART clinic around something to 5 in the morning. Since we arrive back home very late, we usually lock our goats in our house to prevent them from wandering around and eating other people’s food. Sometimes we find some of our stored bags with dry maize eaten by the goats. If the services were available here, it would be much better.” (female from matrilineal community)
Geographical accessibility
Structures formal and informal
Organizational
Access to sexual and reproductive health services
“Heee! I will have problems on this issue because I have been brought up to leave all women reproductive issues to the women themselves; it is not a man’s territory.” (male from matrilineal community)
Rigid gender roles
Established norms and values
Community
“In fact we were thinking of the permanent sterilization, so when she came for the procedure, she was told that she had to go to the district hospital because they [health facility] do not offer the services here. As such currently we just use ‘Zishango’ [condoms].” (male from patrilineal community)
Policies on sexual and reproductive health, HIV, and AIDS
