Stigma Toward HIV/AIDS People

Abstract

The primary goal of this research was to examine attitudes towards people living with HIV/AIDS, namely the level of stigma towards these people. Another goal of this research was to examine the knowledge about HIV/AIDS and the perceived risk of infection with HIV, as well as analysing their relation with stigmatisation. Given that the research seeks to measure students' knowledge and attitudes towards people living with HIV/AIDS and their perception of risk of HIV/AIDS, the research method used is the quantitative one, with questionnaire. The survey study was conducted with 200 students from various departments of the University of Prishtina. Knowledge about HIV/AIDS among students was not complete, i.e. they have misconceptions regarding the ways of transmission of HIV virus. There exists stigma against people living with HIV/AIDS. The average stigma within the Department of Psychology has been: X = 34.9, X = 34.3 within the Faculty of Medicine, X = 36.9 within the Department of Chemistry and the average of stigma within the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer have been X = 37.7. The less that students were informed on HIV/AIDS, the higher was their level of stigma. Perception of risk to HIV/AIDS was very low.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n2p411