Home Visit And Peer-education In Reducing HIV-related Discrimination In HIV/AIDS Patients

Objectives This study used home visit and peer-education intervention and aimed at exploring its effects on alleviating HIV-related discrimination, and establishing HIV/AIDS anti-discrimination interventions to provide evidence for developing community interventions of HIV/AIDS anti-discrimination.Methods One hundred and forteen HIV patients met the criterion of study, were recruited and divided into two groups with each group57patients by random number table. The control group was received traditional health education and routine care, while the experimental group recieved6months home visit and peer-education plus routine care. Every home visit was conducted by home visit group, with a nurse experienced in managing HIV/AIDS and a peer-educator. It included a total of9home visits, in which there was a visit every two weeks in the first three months, and there was a visit every month during the last three months. It took about1hour during home visit. HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination scale was used to evaluate the level of stigma and discrimination of HIV/AIDS patients. Data were analyzed with SPSS16.0, with significance level of0.05.Results During the baseline to6months,5patients were dead and6patients were lost to following up, and103patients finished6months following up, with48patients in the control group and55patients the experimental group.(1)The baseline reported the total score of participants’ HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination was105.11±20.08, the range from38to157, and score of internalized stigma was high.(2) Using Mann-Whitney U test reported that there was significant difference in the total score of stigma between the experimental group and the control group after intervention(Z=2.039, P=0.044). The scores of internalized stigma, professional stigma in the experimental group were significantly lower than that of the control group (P<0.05)(3) The paired T test showed that in experimental group the stigma score after intervention was significantly lower than that of baseline (t=2.300, p=0.025), while there was no such a difference in the sores of the control group.Conclusions (1) In Hunan, the level of HIV-related stigma and discrimination in HIV/AIDS patients was moderate.(2) Home visit and peer-education could decrease the level of HIV-related stigma and discrimination.It included6images,5tables and88references in the article.