Stigma in Hospital: an examination of beliefs and attitudes towards HIV/AIDS patients, Istanbul

ABSTRACT

HIV/AIDS-related stigma remains a crucial public health problem in the world. Unfortunately, health provider staffs such as nurses and physicians are the major source of stigmatization and discrimination against peoples living with HIV (PLHIVs) including in Turkey. The aim of this study was to assess HIV-related stigma towards to PLHIV by nurses and physicians and to examine related factors. Descriptive Assessment Form and the HIV-Related Stigma Scale used for data collection. The study consisted of 405 health workers including 251 nurses and 154 physicians. Over 86% of physicians and 69.3% of nurses had no specific education about HIV. More than 11% of the nurses and 8.4% of the physicians expressed that HIV can be transmitted with handshaking or breathing in a shared environment. Fear-driven stigma was significantly different by age, education, occupation, and work experience. Over 14% of the discrimination (Adjusted R² = .14 F(15–389) = 4.46 P = .000), and 10% of the disclosure were explained by the variables (Adjusted R² = .10 F(15–389) = 4.29 P = .000). The discrimination dimension had a strong positive relationship with the knowledge of HIV transmission modes. In our view, if physicians and nurses receive adequate and comprehensive training on HIV including stigma, the formations of stigma may be prevented and may not develop.

KEYWORDS:

• Stigma
• nurses
• physicians
• HIV/AIDS
• attitude and behaviors
• hospitals

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Research Fund of Istanbul Bilgi University. Project No:2017-01.001.