DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2018.v06i04.074

Pages: 1735-1743

Among all forms of HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination manifestations; those happening in the health-care settings are probably the most shocking. With a sample size of 115, the study was conducted over a period of two months on the Doctors and Nurses of Government/Semi- government and Private hospitals / Clinics. It was a random-sample survey through an anonymous, unlinked and self-administered questionnaire to access health care workers’ HIV/AIDS knowledge, attitudes toward HIV/AIDS patients and acts of discrimination by health care workers. The level of health care workers’ HIV/AIDS knowledge was considerably good. However, the attitude towards issues like mandatory HIV testing, revealing of HIV status, not allowing working of sero-positive health care workers in areas requiring patient contact did have some stigmatizing response. In terms of practice, the most discriminatory response was seen on disclosing HIV status of patient to a colleague not involved in the management of the case and also to a friend. Older age was associated with less frequent stigmatization and discrimination. Training on HIV/AIDS did have some benefit on the responses of the participants; however, the response was not significant in terms of some selected questions on attitude and practice like mandatory HIV testing. Some stigmatizing response was present in health care workers’ attitude. However, for their practice the discriminatory response was significantly less. Doctors and trained participants were less stigmatizing compared to nurses and untrained participants respectively. However the training programs still need to improve upon the attitude and practice.