Attitudes of Health Care Professionals towards people living with HIV
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Exploring the implicit and explicit attitudes of Health Care Professionals’ towards people living with HIV in a low HIV-prevalence society
IRAS ID
141834
Contact name
Nigel Lyttle
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Belfast Health and Social Care Trust
Research summary
In Northern Ireland, a demographically homogeneous and historically low HIV-prevalence society, there has been dramatic increase in the uptake of HIV-testing, and new HIV-diagnosis. This, along with advances in antiretroviral medication, creates an arena in which people living with HIV are living longer and are increasingly turning to health care professionals for support. There is a plethora of research on health care professionals’ attitudes towards people living with HIV, however to date there has been no such research in Northern Ireland. Although HIV-stigma is acknowledged as a global phenomenon it takes on diverse forms in different cultural contexts, therefore the application of current literature to Northern Ireland is limited.
In the existing body of literature, the majority of studies have relied on self-report measures. The use of these types of measure has been questioned as it is acknowledged that variables such as social desirability may influence responses. This may be particularly true for health care professionals who are contracted to provide care that is free of discriminatory practices. The use of techniques used to elicit implicit attitudes have been found to expose negative attitudes that are not otherwise revealed through explicit measures (Noesek et al., 2002; Noesek et al., 2007).
This study will examine the implicit and explicit attitudes of health care professionals attitudes towards people living with HIV using both and implicit and explicit measures.
HIV-specific knowledge has been found to reduce negative attitudes towards people living with HIV; this study will examine the impact of this variable on attitudes. The impact of socio-demographic variables such as age, gender, religiosity and type of health care professional on these attitudes will also be investigated. Finally, the impact of implicit and explicit attitudes on empathy and avoidance will be examined.REC name
HSC REC A
REC reference
14/NI/1018
Date of REC Opinion
30 Jun 2014
REC opinion
Unfavourable Opinion