“Bouncing back to life: A perspective of living arrangement among adolescents with HIV’’

BACKGROUND: Most research on adolescent focuses on the risk associated with the illness. Very little research has been carried out on adolescents who have been diagnosed with HIV since birth. With recent advances with ART treatment, life span of these children has increased, and there are lots of protective factors in the environment influencing the resilience. The present study has focused on the resilience among the adolescence with respect to the living arrangement, i.e., in institutionalized care and extended family. METHODOLOGY: The current study follows an exploratory research design with the aim of comparing resilience among adolescents living in the institutional setup and those living with their families–parents and extended families. Adolescents receiving ART treatment from a tertiary care hospital constitute universe and were selected purposively for the study. Resilience was measured using Child and Youth Resilience Measure. RESULTS: The results indicated that 70% of the female and majority of them belong to Hindu religion. For majority, the mode of transmission is mother to child. There is no statistically significant difference between the resilience with respect to the living arrangement. However, respondents are resilient. CONCLUSION: This study has given a space for resilience for different groups of adolescents with respect to the living arrangement.