Families caring for children living with HIV/AIDS: male care burden and poor health outcomes in a low socioeconomic context of Ghana

Introduction: Evidence shows that over the years, families’ caregiving burden to a child living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) has been enormous. In recent times, there seems to be an increasing rise in males becoming primary caregivers for children living with the virus in Ghana due to several factors, including socio-cultural shifts, health system dynamics, and personal motivations. However, little is known about the care burden of male caregivers in the context of being the primary caregiver to a sick child. Objective: This study aims to explore the burden of male caregivers of children with HIV who sought care at an Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) Clinic in the Volta Region of Ghana. Method: An interpretive phenomenology design was adopted for this study, which was conducted at a regional municipal hospital in Ghana. Purposive sampling was used to recruit 17 male caregivers, mostly fathers of children with HIV. A face-to-face interaction using an interview guide was conducted with the participants in the first quarter of 2022. Thematic analysis was used for data analysis. Results: A total of seventeen male caregivers participated in this study. The findings identified three major themes: child characteristics, care burden and demands, and fathers’ health outcomes. The findings highlighted the fathers’ significant worries and anxieties about their children’s health issues and caregiving duties. The stress of caring for a child with HIV resulted in the poor health of the caregivers, who were battling the same HIV infection. Furthermore, caring for a child with HIV causes marital discord in some marriages. Conclusion: Fathers, as primary caregivers of children living with HIV, live with complicated difficulties as active caregivers. They face a never-ending path that requires managing and adjusting daily to meet the affected child’s unpredictable health needs. These findings have implications for nurse professionals. In the absence of a structured support systems, we recommend that nurses advocate for improved social and medical support systems for male family members with children living with HIV.