LOWER PERCEIVED-STIGMATIZATION BY HEALTH WORKERS AMONG HIV-AIDS PATIENTS OF KEY POPULATION BACKGROUNDS

The stigma of people living with HIV-AIDS (PLWHA) by health workers may have a broad impact, so it is necessary to identify the factors that influence the occurrence of stigma. Identification of factors that cause a decrease in stigmatization by health workers will have an impact on improving the quality of life of people with HIV, increasing compliance with medication, and ultimately reducing the incidence of HIV infection itself. The purpose of this study was to analyze factors related to PLWHA’s perception of stigma among health workers in the community health center.  This research applied a cross-sectional design using interviews. Ninety-four patients from the Infectious Disease Intermediate Care of Dr. Soetomo Hospital Surabaya, a tertiary level hospital, were interviewed. The stigma perception was assessed using a questionnaire modified from the Standardized Brief Questionnaire by Health Policy Project with Cronbach’s Alpha of 0.786. The data were simultaneously analyzed with binary multiple regressions on IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0 for Windows software. There were 30 out of 94 patients with key population backgrounds, and most population was injecting drug users (IDUs) and female sex workers (FSWs). PLWHA perceived most stigmatized community health workers when they drew blood, provided care, and considered they were involved in irresponsible behavior. There were relationships between age(p=0.008), marital status(p=0.013), and the history of key population (p=0.006)to people living with HIV-AIDS (PLWHA)’s perception of stigma among health workers in East Java community health center. Future re search on factors influencing HIV-related stigma is needed to improve patients’ quality of life.