Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide

Running head: BENCHMARK CAPSTONE CHANGE PROJECT OBJECTIVE 2

Objectives:

1. To increase Medication Compliance-Medication compliance keeps the viral load low; this prevents the patient from converting to AIDS, which opens them up to opportunistic infections.

2. Increase awareness- Awareness gives insight into how the disease works, who it affects, possible outcomes, morbidity, and mortality.

3. Prevent and or decrease transmission/New Cases of HIV: U=U (Undetectable=Untransmitable) educates on the effects of having an undetectable viral load preventing the ability to transmit HIV/AIDS to others.

4. Increase status disclosure: Having a clear understanding of U=U helps to educate sex partners, family, and friends without fear, given the inability to transmit the disease because of undetectable status.

5. Decrease and or prevent discrimination and the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS: Educating the public on U=U. The effects and outcomes of medication compliance, such as being undetectable, make it impossible to pass the virus can change how HIV/AIDS is viewed. It will no longer be associated with death, illness, and uncleanness. But it will be recognized as another chronic illness that can be treated and managed. Patients can live normal healthy lives and conceive children without the threat of infecting others.

Living with HIV/AIDS is often a challenge. Many face discrimination, depression, low self-esteem, fear, and poverty due to the stigma associated with having a diagnosis of HIV/AIDS. Lack of education, misinformation, understanding, and cultural bias prevents status disclosure. Fear and embarrassment cause noncompliance with treatment and follow through on doctors' appointments. Patients that go undiagnosed and untreated and are not only predisposed to death and opportunistic infections but have a higher level of the virus in their system, which makes them highly infectious and put others at a much higher risk of contracting the disease. Implementing Undetectable = Untransmittable (U=U) into the education plan for both HIV positive and HIV negative patients will serve to decrease the overall social impact of this disease but also help to prevent new transmissions, increase medication compliance, help to fight & address the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS as well as bring an overall awareness to the modernization and advancements in HIV treatment that enables those infected to be functionally cured from the effects of the disease. It also helps to educate the community on the nature of the disease, positive outcomes related to treatment, and compliance while providing hope and giving evidence of living a healthy normal life.

References