Study On Current Situation Of HIV/AIDS-related Stigma And Discrimination In The Rural Area Of Northern Anhui Province

Objective Through investigating the current situation of PLWHA-related discrimination and its influential factors among residents in the rural areas with a history of paid blood donation, effective measures of intervention is researched to provide a scientific basis for seeking reduction methods of PLWHA-related stigma and discrimination in the rural areas.Methods Based on the data from local health department, 10 villages of higher percentage of PLWHA were investigated. The method of purposive sampling was adopted to select investigated objects including PLWHA, PlWHA's family members ,village staff, country doctors, and HIV-uninfected villagers, who respectively participated one focus group discussion and 20 personal interviews. According to the qualitative research result, the questionnaire was designed to be applied to 125 PLWHA, 378 common villages with the method of random sampling.Results Of all the PLWHA investigated, 106 told the others about their condition of being infected HIV and the self-disclosure rate is 84.80 %( 106/125). 52.00% (65/125) experienced discrimination. The feeling of stigma was related to address, examination type and whether they experienced discrimination etc. The discrimination was related to gender, age, education, income and address etc. 84.80% of PLWHA (106/125) were examined voluntarily, 94.34 % (100/106) of whom had the history of paid blood donation. The knowledge of non-transmitted channels about AIDS was not widely known, and PLWHA-related discrimination was a serious problem in rural areas with a history of paid blood donation. The main manifestations of HIV/AIDS- discrimination were : 54.50% percent of were unwilling to purchase the food products from the PLWHA families and 44.71% villagers forbad their children from playing with the children of PLWHA families. The main reasons of discrimination against PLWHA were indicated that 89.15% villagers were illiterate about AIDS and were afraid of the disease , 92.59% held the view that AIDS is incurable, 43.39% believed the misunderstanding about transmitted route , 28.57% think the irresponsible report in medium way.Conclusions Misunderstanding about AIDS and discrimination against HIV/AIDS still exist in the rural areas with a history of paid blood donation. To improve AIDS knowledge and to eliminate the discrimination against AIDS should be key points in AIDS education. Besides, the government must play a salvation role in helping those PLWHA.