HIV Infection as a Bio-Psycho-Social Phenomenon: Constraints and Opportunities for an Effective Response to the Epidemic

The article analyzes modern approaches to combatting the HIV epidemic including the potential and shortcomings of the nosocentric model, as well as the basic tools that encourage desirable behavior for the prevention and treatment of disease. Study of pre-contact prevention of HIV and COVID-19 infection among patients already infected with HIV shows that there is no direct relationship between awareness and patterns of preventive behavior. Potential ways to update the information available about the disease by making individuals aware of the risk of infection due to communication are examined. The author points out a lack of differentiation in communication strategies and underemphas is on informing people. The ideas of specialists about a direct relationship between information and the formation of desirable behavior are analyzed with regard to HIV infection. The opportunity to correct these ideas in the process of training specialists is explored, and the potential for attracting specialists by applying technologies that prevent emotional burnout is shown. The feasibility of an interdisciplinary patient-centered approach to providing medical care for HIV infection is confirmed. Factors that prevent the introduction of communication-based technologies in actual clinical practice are analyzed as are the trend toward a simplified guardianship approach to solving problems in the prevention of infection and the predominant use of monologue-based directive forms of communication. The formation of desirable behavior for prevention of HIV infection, commitment to maintaining health, and compliance with a dispensary’s regime for observation and treatment of HIV infection are considered as a two-way process of interaction in a system that embraces both the specialist and the patient.