title: Weaving meanings together in an AIDS residence: communicative practices, perceived health outcomes, and the symbolic construction of community.
abstract: This study examines the role of communicative practices in the symbolic construction of health and community among residents living in a residential facility for people with AIDS. Questionnaire results show that two types of communicative practices--governance/support and everyday/special--are significantly related to residents' perceived physical and emotional health outcomes, their perceptions of the residence as a community (as opposed to a facility or institution), and their satisfaction with living there. Everyday/special practices reveal the communicative means by which perceived health is socially constructed, while governance/support practices reveal the importance of meta-communication for massaging the issues and tensions that pervade community life, and both sets of communicative practices help explain members' perceptions of the residence as a community and their satisfaction with living there. The study provides additional evidence regarding the constitutive nature of communication as a connecting thread that weaves together individual and collective meanings to help create and sustain such concepts as health and community.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication, University of Memphis, Tennessee 38152-3150, USA. lfrey@memphis.edu
authors.forename: L R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Frey
authors.forename: M B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Adelman
authors.forename: L J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Flint
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Query
mesh_terms: D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000503:physiopathology; D003142:Communication; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D012112:Residential Facilities