The aim of this study was to understand and describe the feelings reported by health workers when facing the emergence of AIDS in a reference hospital for infectious diseases during the period from 1986 through 2006. For data gathering, we employed oral history collected from 23 health workers. For data treatment, we used content analysis, which yielded three categories: attitudes and/or feelings of health workers concerning AIDS; health workers' perception of the feelings and attitudes of patients and their families when faced with a positive diagnosis of HIV; and attitudes and/or feelings of the population in reaction to the emergence of AIDS. Feelings such as discrimination, stigma, rejection, and shame, as well as feelings about death marked the history of the AIDS epidemic because, far beyond physical death, AIDS also brought feelings of social death.
Prejudice; Discrimination; Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Health professionals; History of nursing