TITLE:
Assessment of HIV/AIDS Stigma in a Rural Namibian Community
AUTHORS:
Penehafo Angula, Busisiwe Purity Ncama, Janet Frohlich
KEYWORDS:
People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), Family & Community Stigma Instrument, Ongenga Constituency, Namibia
JOURNAL NAME:
World Journal of AIDS,
Vol.5 No.3,
September
7,
2015
ABSTRACT: Namibia has been affected by the Human
Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)
pandemic with infected and affected persons experiencing stigma at different
levels. Despite the high level of knowledgeon HIV/AIDS, stigma remains a
challenge. It was for this reason that this paper describes and measures the
level of HIV/AIDS stigma in a rural community in Namibia. Mixed methods were used
to collect data from 224 participants consisting of 93 people living with
HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) who were recruited voluntarily from their support groups, 77
family members nominated by PLWHA participants, 31 community members who were
recruited through simple random sampling and 19 opinion leaders who were
purposefully selected and four health care workers from an Antiretroviral
clinic who were available at the time of this study. Three measurement
instruments namely HIV/AIDS Stigma Instrument-PLWHA (HASI-P), Family &
Community Stigma Instrument (F&C-SI) and HIV/AIDS Stigma Instrument-Nurse
(HASI- N) were used. In-depth interviews were conducted to complement the
quantitative results. The study found that stigma manifests in different ways
and results revealed that verbal abuse (55%, n = 50, PLWHA), social isolation
(73%, n = 67), negative self-perception (33%, n = 30), and household stigma
(26% n = 19, family members) were the most common form of stigma experienced by
PLWHA. Furthermore health care workers reported stigma of association (50%, n =
2) as care providers for people living with HIV/AIDS. The study concluded that
stigma exists although some scores such as fear of contagion and workplace
stigma were low. Therefore, interventions in knowledge on basic facts of HIV
transmission need to be strengthened. Nonetheless the majority of participants
confirmed their willingness to care for sick relatives with HIV and AIDS. This
study did not explore stigma of association against caregivers with other participants
other than the four health care workers from the antiretroviral clinic. Future
researchers can take this further.