Understanding Types of Stigma Experienced in Black Women Living With HIV in Baltimore, Maryland: A Mixed Methods Study.
Tanya Mikhael, Kyra Jennifer Waligora Mendez, Chun-An Sun and 2 others
PMID 39868804WHAT IT FOUND
Black women living with HIV described vicarious, enacted, internalised and perceived stigma in everyday life, but the HIV Stigma Scale used here captured only internalised stigma.
Ask separately about each type when assessing HIV care barriers.
Key findings
01The HIV Stigma Scale factor analysis supported one factor, and item review indicated it measured internalised stigma, not separate stigma types.
02Interviews with 16 women identified vicarious, enacted, internalised and perceived stigma.
03Perceived stigma linked to social media could lead to enacted stigma, such as people in the building arguing and throwing the status back at a participant.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The interviews were nested in a trial about cervical cancer screening, so questions were mainly about the intervention, not stigma. Only 16 women were interviewed, and they were from the intervention group, so the qualitative themes may not represent all Black women living with HIV. All participants were cisgender Black women in Baltimore, so findings may not apply to other groups or places. Time since HIV diagnosis was unknown, so it is unclear how long women had experienced stigma. The survey sample size was modest, and the factor analysis was exploratory, so the conclusion that the scale measures only internalised stigma needs confirmation. Interview quotes were slightly edited for readability and identifiers, so exact wording may differ from the transcript.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The funder named was the Center for AIDS Research, Johns Hopkins University.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume a low HIV Stigma Scale score means stigma is absent. In this study the scale behaved as one factor and was judged to capture internalised stigma, while interviews described enacted, vicarious and perceived stigma.