Brief HIV stigma scale for Japanese people living with HIV: validation and restructuring using questionnaire survey data

Figures & data

Table 1. Participant characteristics.

	Mean	SD	N
Age	47.7	10.7	449
		%	N
Gender	Man	90.9	410
	Woman	4.2	19
	Transgender	0.9	4
	Missing value	4.0	18
HIV infection risk factors	Men who have sex with men	73.8	333
	Heterosexual	7.5	34
	Intravenous drug use	0.4	2
	Unknown/missing value	18.2	82

Figure 1. The model from the confirmatory factor analysis.

Table 2. Model fitness and reliability of the HSSj.

χ2		44.337
Degrees of freedom		29
P-value		0.034
Comparative fit index (CFI)		0.999
Tucker–Lewis index (TLI)		0.998
Root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA)		0.035
Standardized root mean square residual (SRMR)		0.037
Omega	HSSj	0.90
	Personal stigma	0.76
	Disclosure	0.63
	Public attitude	0.60
	Negative self-image	0.87

Estimator: Diagonally-weighted least squares.

Figure 2. Graph of the result from the parallel analysis of the HSSj.

Table 3. Factor loadings of the HSSj from factor analysis and non-response number for each item.

		Factor loading		Number of nonresponders (%)	Mean (±S)	Ske-wness	Kurt-osis
		1	2
1	I am very careful who I tell that I have HIV.	0.630		4 (0.9)	3.64 (±0.65)	−2.05	4.46
2	I feel that I am not as good a person as others because I have HIV.		0.910	4 (0.9)	2.50 (±0.96)	−0.05	−0.96
3	I lose friends by telling them I have HIV.^a	0.783		6 (1.3)	3.08 (±0.81)	−0.59	−0.20
4	Having HIV makes me feel unclean.		0.863	4 (0.9)	2.62 (±0.93)	−0.19	−0.82
5	Most people think that a person with HIV is disgusting^.^b	0.325		7 (1.6)	2.53 (±0.87)	0.01	−0.70
6	I worry that people who know I have HIV will tell others.	0.727		4 (0.9)	3.27 (±0.71)	−0.74	0.33
7	Most people with HIV are rejected when others find out.	0.700		8 (1.8)	2.93 (±0.79)	−0.31	−0.46
8	I am hurt by how people react to learning I have HIV.^a	0.839		5 (1.1)	3.15 (±0.78)	−0.78	0.41
9	Having HIV makes me feel that I’m a bad person.		0.936	5 (1.1)	2.39 (±0.94)	0.20	−0.85
10	I stop socializing with some people because of their reactions of my having HIV.^a	0.773		6 (1.3)	2.91 (±0.78)	−0.42	−0.13

N = 451.

^aAdapted items for Japanese adults with HIV.

^bExcluded item by factor analysis.

Table 4. Spearman’s correlation coefficients of the HSSj with respect to the two psychological questionnaires.

	PHQ-9J		Self-esteem scale
	Correlation coefficient	p- value	Correlation coefficient	p- value
HSSj	0.45	$<$0.001	$-$0.48	$<$0.001
Concern with public stigma	0.43	$<$0.001	$-$0.51	$<$0.001
Negative self-image	0.37	$<$0.001	$-$0.34	$<$0.001