Social Support And Wellbeing Among People Living With Hiv/Aids In Puducherry During Covid-19 Pandemic

Social Work plays an important role in the development of a country. It also plays a crucial role during natural calamities, economic depressions, and pandemics. During the current COVID-19 pandemic also, the social workers have responsibilities to discharge despite the risks involved. In fact, thousands of social workers are on the field along with health workers in all countries in mitigating the sufferings of people due to COVID-19. Their involvement has supported other players including health care workers. The new coronal virus (COVID-19) that was first detected in December 2019 in Wuhan, China,has literally devastated the world. Suddenly a tiny virus made huge impact on life of people in the entire Universe. According to World Health Organization (WHO), the virus has spread to about 192 countries. It affected all spheres of lives of people, especially;there has been a huge impact on economy.The livelihood of people across the world has affected severely. The people living at the periphery of the society such as daily wage earners, street vendors, people living in streets, people living with HIV and AIDS, orphan children, unattended old people, differently abled are badly affected. Most of the PLHIV are, in normal circumstances, live in a precarious circumstance. COVID-19 and subsequent lockdown for a long period had impacted them adversely in many ways. Distancing, lack of personal contact and isolation during the pandemic had affected their life more drastically. Most of them who were doing odd jobs lost it and their survival itself were at stake. Many of them found it difficult to manage their livelihood due to loss of job and income. Some of them did not receive any support either from government or from NGOs. They were deprived of getting ART medicines regularly. Such situation had affected them physically as well as psychologically.The PLHIV who received support from various sources was able to maintain their wellbeing. The ART medical support received by the PLHIV through NGOs during COVID-19 pandemic managed their lives in a more positive manner. The data was collected from 30 male and 30 female PLHIV living in Puducherry.The wellbeing was assessed in the context of WHO (five)Wellbeing Index and social support was assed using the Scale of Perceived Social Support in HIV (PSS-HIV). The study confirmed that social workers had played important roles in extending social support to the most needy and vulnerable people especially PLHIV during the pandemic to alleviate their suffering and burden.