DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2014.v02i03.057

Pages: 1148-1152

AIDS epidemic has spread across all sections of Indian society and has assumed pandemic proportions. The stigma and discrimination associated with the disease have made it more difficult to control its spread by perpetuating the wall of silence and shame surrounding the epidemic. All this may have a negative impact on psychology of people who are newly diagnosed as HIV positive. This research was conducted with the objective to study the impact of HIV positive status on psychology and attitude of HIV positive persons. The study design was cross sectional, carried out at Integrated Counselling and Testing Centre at Govt. Medical College, Amritsar from 1st Jan’09 to 31st Dec’09. ICTC was visited thrice a week and by using purposive sampling all the persons (405) who came to collect their positive reports on these three days of the week, were included in the study after obtaining their written informed consent. Data was analyzed using statistical software Epi Info version 7. Results show that most of the respondents were males, currently married, educated up to middle school level and belonging to lower socio economic status. A maximum number of respondents (62%) felt very sad or depressed after knowing their HIV positive status. 6.7% were not willing to disclose their HIV positive status to anyone while maximum proportion of respondents were ready to disclose it to spouse or other member of family. 42.9% of unmarried respondents did not want to get married and almost three fourth expected cordial relations from society without any discrimination.