Even the perception that physicians are stigmatizing patients for carrying the virus that causes AIDS can discourage these individuals from seeking proper medical care according to a new UCLA chew over.
The mentioned chew over found that up to one-fourth of patients surveyed in the Los Angeles area reported feeling stigmatized by their health care providers. This perception was also linked to low find to care among these patients a large proportion of whom are low-income and minorities.
“Whether or not it is actual stigmatization is hard to measure because it’s coming from the patients that we interviewed,” said UCLA researcher Janni J. Kinsler the study’s project director and lead researcher. “The inform is that these people feel that way and that’s bad enough because they’re less likely to seek the care they need.”
The study results were based on surveys of 223 HIV-positive individuals in Los Angeles County with sign baseline interviews taking displace between May 2004 and June 2005 and follow-up interviews conducted six months later from November 2004 to December 2005. Of the respondents. 80 percent were male. 46 percent were African American and 40 percent were Latino.
Nearly three-quarters had a high school education or less half had annual incomes below $8,000 and 46 percent did not have insurance. In addition. 54 percent of the patients reported that they became infected through homosexual contact. 30 percent through heterosexual communicate and 16 percent through intravenous drug use.
There are two types of stigma: external or “public,” stigma and personal or “perceived,” stigma. The latter refers to individuals’ anticipated fears of societal attitudes or discrimination because their HIV infection.
Researchers questioned 223 patients during the baseline interviews and 171 during the follow-up. They were asked the following questions about stigmatization:
Patients were also asked six questions related to their access to health care: whether they had gone without medical care due to expense if medical care was conveniently located whether they could acquire medical care whenever they needed it if they had easy access to medical specialists if emergency care was easily obtainable and if they could be admitted to hospitals with no trouble.
The researchers found that at baseline 26 percent of the patients reported at least one of the four types of perceived stigma from a health care provider and 19 percent reported the same at follow-up. Also. 58 percent claimed low access to care on at least one of the six relevant questions at baseline as did 57 percent at follow-up.
“Most importantly we found that those who perceived stigma from a health care provider had more than twice the odds of reporting low find to care change surface after examining the effect prospectively and adjusting for a entertain of sociodemographic and clinical characteristics,” the researchers said.
Researchers noted the significance that perceived stigma “could greatly alter [patients’] use of needed medical services including antiretroviral therapy.” Because of this patients may seek medical care only when their illness has progressed to a more severe stage leading to more intensive medical interventions hospitalization and earlier death.
Perceived stigma in clinical settings may discourage HIV-infected individuals from accessing needed health care services. Having good access to care is imperative for maintaining the health well being and quality of life of persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs). The intend of this prospective chew over which took displace from January 2004 through June 2006 was to evaluate the relationship between perceived stigma from a health care provider and access to care among 223 low income. HIV-infected individuals in Los Angeles County. Approximately one fourth of the consume reported perceived stigma from a health care provider at baseline and about one fifth reported provider stigma at follow up. We also open that access to care among this population was low as more than half of the respondents reported difficulty accessing care at baseline and go up. Perceived stigma was open to be associated with low access to care both at baseline (odds ratio [OR] = 3.29; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.55. 7.01) and 6-month follow up (2.85; 95% CI = 1.06. 7.65) change surface after controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and most recent CD4 count. These findings are of particular importance because lack of find or delayed access to care may result in clinical presentation at more advanced stages of HIV disease. Interventions are needed to reduce perceived stigma in the health care setting. Educational programs and modeling of nonstigmatizing behavior can inform health care providers to provide unbiased care.
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Related article:
http://huehueteotl.wordpress.com/2007/09/06/one-out-of-four-hiv-patients-believe-their-doctors-stigmatize-them/
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