Network stigma towards people living with HIV/AIDS and their caregivers: An egocentric network study

Abstract

HIV stigma occurs among peers in social networks. However, the features of social networks that drive HIV stigma are not well understood. The objective of this study is to investigate anticipated HIV stigma within the social networks of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) (N = 147) and the social networks of PLWHA's caregivers (N = 148). The egocentric social network data were collected in Guangxi, China. More than half of PLWHA (58%) and their caregivers (53%) anticipated HIV stigma from their network peers. Both PLWHA and their caregivers anticipated that spouses or other family members were less likely to stigmatise them, compared to friend peers or other relationships. Married network peers were believed to stigmatise caregivers more than unmarried peers. The association between frequent contacts and anticipated stigma was negative among caregivers. Being in a close relationship with PLWHA or caregivers (e.g., a spouse or other family member) was associated with less anticipated stigma. Lower network density was associated with higher anticipated stigma among PLWHA's alters, but not among caregivers' alters. Findings may shed light on innovative stigma reduction interventions at the social network level and therefore improve HIV/AIDS treatment utilisation.

Keywords:

• HIV
• stigma
• egocentric social network
• China

Acknowledgement

We are grateful to the staff from Nanning Center for Disease and Control for participation in the study and to all the participants who gave so willingly of their time to provide the study data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by National Institutes of Health [grant number R01 HD068305-01] and by the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.