DETERMINANTS OF PERCEIVED STIGMATIZATION AND DISCRIMINATION AGAINST PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS AMONG WOMEN OF REPRODUCTIVE AGE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

HIV-related stigma and discrimination have been acknowledged as an impediment to mitigating the HIV epidemic since its early days, yet programming and activities to reduce stigma and discrimination have been given much less attention than other aspects of the epidemic. Recently, there has been an increase in the literature on HIV stigma as the issue has gained visibility and greater conceptual clarity. The worldwide HIIV/AIDS epidemic disproportionately affects Sub-Saharan Africa where nearly two third of the world's HIV infected people live. Probability sampling was used for the survey. Multi-stage cluster sampling method was used to select eligible persons with known probability. Stage 1 involved the selection of rural and urban localities. Stage 2 involved the selection of Enumeration Areas (EA) within the selected rural and urban localities, Stage 3 involved the listing and selection of households while stage 4 involved selection of individual respondents for interview and testing. Overall 35,520 households and 35,520 individual respondents were selected for final interview of which 32,190 households (91 % ) and 31,235 individual (88% were successfully interviewed: resulting in a 2.5% non-response rate. A total of 24,152 of the individuals that responded to the interview (which represent 78%) were successfully tested for HIV. It was discovered that the mean age of the women in this study was 29.08 years with majority of the respondents in age group 25-39 years. This study revealed that the levels of perceived stigma are significantly higher among young women OF those below 24 years. It was also observed that level of education also play an important role in stigmatization towards PLWHA. Tl1is study also discovered that those who are unskilled discriminate more against people living with HIV.