TITLE:
Guidelines for Community-Based HIV/AIDS Stigma Reduction Intervention in a Rural Community
AUTHORS:
Penehafo Angula, Busisiwe P. Ncama
KEYWORDS:
Guidelines, HIV/AIDS Stigma Reduction, Rural Community, Namibia
JOURNAL NAME:
World Journal of AIDS,
Vol.6 No.1,
March
25,
2016
ABSTRACT: Research encourages evidence-based
guidelines for practice. This paper describes the guidelines for HIV/AIDS
stigma reduction in the community. These guidelines were developed by the
authors based on findings of the study which was conducted to develop and
evaluate HIV/AIDS stigma reduction intervention in a rural Namibian community.
The developed intervention consisted of three strategies which are recommended
as baseline for these guidelines. The three strategies were: education,
community involvement and contacts with infected and affected groups that were
implemented in this study. These strategies were implemented among the people
living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), their families and community members from the
intervention group. The post-intervention results showed significant
differences on stigma reduction between the intervention and control groups,
therefore these strategies were recommended for future use. Furthermore, the
study found that a combination of strategies was more effective than using a single
approach. Another strategy that was absent in this study but was recommended in
these guidelines for future stigma reduction was: counselling approach, which
could be used to address internal stigma. This paper therefore recommends that
these combined strategies: education, community involvement, contacts with
affected and infected groups and continuous counselling, which will be named
ECCC approach might be useful to reduce HIV/AIDS stigma in the community.