The Lived Experience of Grieving for Persons Living With HIV Who Have Used Injection Drugs

Parse's research method was used to investigate the lived experience of grieving for 10 persons self-identified as HIV-positive injection drug users. These individuals compose an understudied and poorly understood population, and their grief experiences have rarely been documented. The losses grieved by persons living with HIV infection include the loss of life, friends, family members, employment, energy, and sex. The lived experience of grieving was found to be "overwhelming anguish that shapes hopes and intentions as a wretched aloneness is punctuated with cherished uplifting engagements, while gratitude inspires courage in the midst of ambiguity." This new conceptualization of the grieving process is discussed in light of Parse's human becoming theory of nursing.