HIV/AIDS Stigma,Discrimination,and Perceived Risk Of Infection Among Healthcare Providers In East Africa

HIV/AIDS related stigma and discrimination poses a huge obstacle not only to the life of people living with HIV/AIDS,but also to those who willingly want to go for HIV testing.Thus,it is contributing both to the spread of the disease and hindering the potential interventions from being effective.This study has attempted to identify the extent of HIV/AIDS stigma and discrimination among healthcare providers in three East African countries,namely,Uganda,Rwanda and Eritrea.A sample of 446 healthcare providers was surveyed with a predesigned questionnaire seeking to identify the relationship between demographic characteristics and HIV/AIDS stigma and discrimination as well as the interrelationship among stigma,perceived risk of infection and discriminatory behavior.The study found that HIV/AIDS stigma and discrimination is prevalent among the healthcare providers in Uganda followed by Rwanda and to a lesser extent in Eritrea.Meanwhile,age and years of experience of the professionals were found to have a significant negative relationship with stigma,discrimination,and fear and perceived risk of infection.Also,variance in HIV/AIDS stigma and discrimination was found as gender and providers-type differs.The study also identified significant relationships between stigma and perceived risk of infection.It also found that these two variables directly affected discrimination.These findings are consolidated by the theoretical framework of Stigma and Discrimination Transfer as well as Stigma and Discrimination-Factor Transferability.