ARHIVELE OLTENIEI - Universitatea din Craiova

260Rodica ŢuguiThe “HIV/AIDS ” PHENOMENALEVEL OF KNOWLEDGE. PERCEPTIONS AND ATTITUDES(The results of a study proposed by the staff of the projectConsolidation of community initiatives in Romania)(Abstract)The present study has been realized based on the information obtained from focusgroups in which priests have participated.The selection of the priests to participate in these focus groups considered creating acomplex group structure to reflect as closely as possible the general reality. Namely, to have theparochies with small and very small incomes (poor parochies) represented and those withminimum and large incomes; to have the opinions of the priests from the capital cities of thecounties express their opinion, as well as the priests from the villages; to have all of the agesegments represented, from the very young priests to the older ones.Besides the HIV danger, the serious social problems of the parochies mentioned in all ofthe group discussions were: poverty associated with lack of education and with physicalvulnerability in other categories (old or disabled people); alcoholism, presented sometimes as theeffect of certain social processes and at other times as a cause of them (alcoholism was mentionedby everybody in the focus groups as a tenacious and not curable „virus” of Romaniancommunities). The moral crisis of the family under many aspects: illegal relationships, living asconcubines and obviously not being religiously married, families falling apart, difficult couplerelationships because people go abroad massively to work; the loneliness of the old people; theasocial behavior of the young people resulting mainly from them not being supervised or becausethey come from inadequate family models (families of alcoholics, violent parents, etc.) sometimesbecause of the incapacity of the local community to integrate these young people in activitiesaccording to their age for a culturally educational character.The priests notice, with concern, the absence of any community feeling and of anyresponsibility about its way of functioning. About the contribution of the priests for solving thesocial matters of the community, there were two points of view: one, not so well represented,which considers the intervention of the priest being necessary exclusively thru theological meanssuch as confession, prayer or any other types of activities that would lead to the individual’sspiritual development (meaning biblical models, meetings with today`s spiritual leaders, etc.)There were different points of view represented by most of the participants at the focus groupswho were proposing other means of intervention, besides the theological ones. In this situation, itwas appreciated that the priests have a minimum level of knowledge over certain phenomena(alcoholism, AIDS, violence, etc.) which would permit intervention in emergency cases, byfacilitating partnerships with groups of specialists, also by facilitating the receipt of support fromreal professionals. Frequently the participants at the focus groups have mentioned that they want tobe informed about the legal framework in the social field, about the management of social projects,mainly about the way to finance certain social activities in the parochies. According to theopinions of the participants in the group discussions, information about AIDS in our country wasknown only after 1990, with very few exceptions. It seems that this silence about AIDS inRomania makes the population less informed about the history of the disease mostly about itsstarting points and over its “danger”. The greatest number of participants in the focus groupsrecognize the difference between HIV and AIDS, they also knew the common way of transmissionand they also referred to the long period of incubation putting the accent on the need to educate thepopulation to avoid contamination and to promote tolerant behavior for sero-positives. They oftenappreciated their knowledge as being insufficient as well as their possibilities to act by asking therelevant institutions to help prevent its spread. Concerning the methods of preventing the sicknessand its spread, most of the priests have talked about moral means which aim at „a certain purity ofthe body and soul, abstinence until marriage and marital fidelity. Also the participants said that an