Assessment of HIV/AIDS Stigma in a Rural Namibian Community

Abstract

Namibia has been affected by the Human\rImmunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)\rpandemic with infected and affected persons experiencing stigma at different\rlevels. Despite the high level of knowledge on HIV/AIDS, stigma remains a\rchallenge. It was for this reason that this paper describes and measures the\rlevel of HIV/AIDS stigma in a rural community in Namibia. Mixed methods were used\rto collect data from 224 participants consisting of 93 people living with\rHIV/AIDS (PLWHA) who were recruited voluntarily from their support groups, 77\rfamily members nominated by PLWHA participants, 31 community members who were\rrecruited through simple random sampling and 19 opinion leaders who were\rpurposefully selected and four health care workers from an Antiretroviral\rclinic who were available at the time of this study. Three measurement\rinstruments namely HIV/AIDS Stigma Instrument-PLWHA (HASI-P), Family &\rCommunity Stigma Instrument (F&C-SI) and HIV/AIDS Stigma Instrument-Nurse\r(HASI- N) were used. In-depth interviews were conducted to complement the\rquantitative results. The study found that stigma manifests in different ways\rand results revealed that verbal abuse (55%, n = 50, PLWHA), social isolation\r(73%, n = 67), negative self-perception (33%, n = 30), and household stigma\r(26% n = 19, family members) were the most common form of stigma experienced by\rPLWHA. Furthermore health care workers reported stigma of association (50%, n =\r2) as care providers for people living with HIV/AIDS. The study concluded that\rstigma exists although some scores such as fear of contagion and workplace\rstigma were low. Therefore, interventions in knowledge on basic facts of HIV\rtransmission need to be strengthened. Nonetheless the majority of participants\rconfirmed their willingness to care for sick relatives with HIV and AIDS. This\rstudy did not explore stigma of association against caregivers with other participants\rother than the four health care workers from the antiretroviral clinic. Future\rresearchers can take this further.