Measuring Attitudes Toward Injecting Drug Users and People with Hepatitis C

Abstract

Preexisting scales used to measure attitudes toward human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) and homosexuals were adapted to assess attitudes toward people with hepatitis C (HCV) and injecting drug users (IDUs). In 2005, 110 undergraduate psychology students completed these scales, and abbreviated versions of the IDU and HCV scales were then administered to 61 health care workers to establish their relevance in the field. Results indicated that the new scales have good reliability and validity with undergraduates and with health care workers in an applied setting.

Keywords:

• hepatitis C
• injecting drug use
• stigma
• discrimination
• measuring attitudes

Notes

¹ It should be noted, however, that when an additional eight health care workers from a pretest sample were included in the reliability analysis of the Attitude toward IDU Scale, the reliability improved to α =. 66.