Stigma and Discrimination Towards HIV in Healthcare Workers in Shenzhen, China
Introduction: To measure HIV-related stigma and discrimination (S&D) among health care facilities in Bao’an, Shenzhen to inform decision making regarding stigma-reduction intervention.
Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted using a standardized measurement tool between October 2019 and January 2020 among 1235 staff randomly sampled from 18 public and private hospitals. Data relevant to respondents’ demographic information, drivers of HIV related S&D, enacted stigma, and stigma towards pregnant women living with HIV were collected for analysis.
Results: Percentage of medical staff worrying occupational exposure to HIV infection when dressing wound, drawing blood and doing delivery are 82.8%, 82.1% and 81.9%, respectively. Gender, specialty, training and hospital funding are independent factors affecting health staff’s anxiety over infection. 75.2% respondents believe that people living with HIV (PLWH) should seek care exclusively from designated hospital specializing in infectious disease and more than 50% of health staff survey reported over-protective measures.
Conclusion: S&D toward PLWH as well as its drivers are widely prevalent among health care facilities. Findings of this study highlight the importance of stigma-reduction interventions to ensure equal access to health care by PLWH.
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This is a list of supplementary files associated with this preprint. Click to download.
Additional file 1: Health Worker Questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed as a standard measurement of HIV-related S&D in health facilities developed by Health Policy Project (HPP), which was a brief, simple, standardized tool for measuring stigma among all levels of health facility staff that worked across diverse HIV prevalence, language and healthcare settings. The questionnaire was translated by linguistic experts into Chinese with its English version and we add only a new item in the “opinion section”.
Additional file 2: Raw Date Ethics approval and consent to participate All participants are assured of the anonymity of the survey and protection of their privacy. They are all invited to provide informed consent prior to the surveying process by agreeing the terms and conditions of the questionnaire. All participants are notified that they have every right to choose not to participate in the study and are free to withdraw from the survey at any point considering the sensitivity of the contents being surveyed. Any information that may potentially identify an individual respondent will be desensitized during data processing and analysis. The survey was approved by the ethical committed of the Bao’an Children’s and Women’s hospital and the ethical approval number is LLSCHY 2019-10-22-1. We confirm that all methods were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations.
Posted 28 Dec, 2020
Stigma and Discrimination Towards HIV in Healthcare Workers in Shenzhen, China
Posted 28 Dec, 2020
Introduction: To measure HIV-related stigma and discrimination (S&D) among health care facilities in Bao’an, Shenzhen to inform decision making regarding stigma-reduction intervention.
Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted using a standardized measurement tool between October 2019 and January 2020 among 1235 staff randomly sampled from 18 public and private hospitals. Data relevant to respondents’ demographic information, drivers of HIV related S&D, enacted stigma, and stigma towards pregnant women living with HIV were collected for analysis.
Results: Percentage of medical staff worrying occupational exposure to HIV infection when dressing wound, drawing blood and doing delivery are 82.8%, 82.1% and 81.9%, respectively. Gender, specialty, training and hospital funding are independent factors affecting health staff’s anxiety over infection. 75.2% respondents believe that people living with HIV (PLWH) should seek care exclusively from designated hospital specializing in infectious disease and more than 50% of health staff survey reported over-protective measures.
Conclusion: S&D toward PLWH as well as its drivers are widely prevalent among health care facilities. Findings of this study highlight the importance of stigma-reduction interventions to ensure equal access to health care by PLWH.
Figure 1
Figure 2