AIDS is not solely a medical issue but also has profound implications for social and family relationships. Traditionally when a person is ill, the family is seen to provide emotional, practical and social support. Experience has shown, however, that AIDS disrupts this conventional pattern of support. On the one hand AIDS, like any other serious illness, affects family members both from day to day and in the long term. What distinguishes AIDS from so many other illnesses is the associated social stigma and the fact that HIV may be transmissible, or may have been transmitted, within a relationsh