HIV Stigma Toward People Living With HIV and Health Providers Associated With Their Care: Qualitative Interviews With Community Members in Egypt.

We explored perceived HIV stigma by community members in a low-HIV-prevalence setting toward people living with HIV (PLWH) and physicians associated with HIV in order to develop operational stigma reduction recommendations for HIV referral hospitals. In-depth interviews (N = 30) were conducted with educated and less-educated men and women in Egypt. Thematic analysis was applied to identify drivers, manifestations, and outcomes of stigma. Stigma toward PLWH was rooted in values and fears, manifesting in reluctance to use the same health facilities as PLWH. Stigma toward physicians providing care for PLWH was caused by fear of infection and developed into unwillingness to use those physicians' services. Stigma toward physicians who refused to provide care was linked to perceptions of unethical behavior. HIV referral hospitals in low HIV prevalence settings could benefit from stigma reduction interventions with a special focus on addressing moral-based stigma and fear of casual transmission.

HIV stigma intervention in a low-HIV prevalence setting: a pilot study in an Egyptian healthcare facility.

This pilot study is the first to evaluate stigma-reduction intervention in a healthcare setting in Egypt and in the Middle East and North Africa region. It also contributes to knowledge on how to address stigma in low-HIV prevalence settings. A quasi-experimental study design was used to evaluate the effect of anti-HIV stigma intervention in one hospital in Egypt. A control hospital was selected and matched to the intervention hospital by type, size and location. The intervention focused on HIV-related stigma, infection control and medical ethics. Stigma was measured at baseline and at three months post-intervention. A standardized, 10-point scale was developed to measure stigmatizing attitudes and fear-based stigma among participants. Comparisons of overall and job-stratified stigma scores were made across the intervention and control hospitals, before and after the intervention, using two-sample t-test and multivariate regression analysis. Mean stigma scores did not reveal significant differences between the intervention and control hospitals at baseline. After intervention, the overall value-based and fear-based stigma scores were significantly lower in the intervention hospital compared to the control hospital (2.1 and 1.1 compared to 3.8 and 3.2, respectively; p < .001). Context-specific and culturally appropriate HIV stigma-reduction interventions in low-HIV prevalence settings can reduce fear-based and value-based stigma among physicians and nurses.

Qualitative interviews with non-national tuberculosis patients in Cairo, Egypt: understanding the financial and social cost of treatment adherence.

Limited data are available about the challenges of non-national TB patients undergoing long-term treatment courses in an urban setting. This study aimed to understand the financial and social cost of adherence of non-national TB patients in Cairo, Egypt as a means to inform the development of context-specific interventions to support treatment adherence. In 2011, 22 in-depth interviews were conducted with TB patients from Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti to obtain qualitative data. Analysis was based on thematic analysis that aimed to identify recurrent themes and codes from the narratives. The study identified a number of factors that influence TB treatment adherence. Uncertain financial status due to limited or no employment was frequently discussed in interviews, which resulted in fear of not being able to support family, loss of pride, dependence on family and friends, fear of losing housing, food insecurity and limited food options. Respondents also feared infecting other household members and longed for opportunities to discuss their illness and treatment experiences with other individuals but their social networks were often limited. TB-related stigma was driven by shame and blame of infection. Respondents also believed stigma was based on their foreign origin. Stigma manifested in distancing and exclusion in various ways, resulting in isolation, psychological distress and reluctance to disclose TB status to others. Poverty-related factors and social context with a special focus on stigma should be considered when developing strategies for supporting long-term treatment courses for non-national patients in Cairo and other similar urban settings.

Learning about Barriers to Care for People Living with HIV in Egypt: A Qualitative Exploratory Study.

The purpose of this study was to identify obstacles health care workers face in providing care for people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA). Based on these findings, health authorities can design interventions to support health care workers in providing better medical care for PLWHA. Thirty in-depth interviews were conducted with physicians and nurses in one 300-bed tertiary care public hospital in Giza, Egypt. Thematic analysis was conducted by 2 investigators. Five main themes were identified (1) fear of infection; (2) disbelief in effectiveness of infection control measures to protect against HIV; (3) misconceptions regarding medical care for PLWHA; (4) fear of secondary stigma; and (5) moral judgments toward PLWHA and negative connotations related to HIV. Interventions targeting health care workers should be multidimensional, including knowledge and skills building as well as value and attitude change. Reducing stigma among health care workers will improve access to care for PLWHA.

A brief, standardized tool for measuring HIV-related stigma among health facility staff: results of field testing in China, Dominica, Egypt, Kenya, Puerto Rico and St. Christopher & Nevis.

INTRODUCTION: Within healthcare settings, HIV-related stigma is a recognized barrier to access of HIV prevention and treatment services and yet, few efforts have been made to scale-up stigma reduction programs in service delivery. This is in part due to the lack of a brief, simple, standardized tool for measuring stigma among all levels of health facility staff that works across diverse HIV prevalence, language and healthcare settings. In response, an international consortium led by the Health Policy Project, has developed and field tested a stigma measurement tool for use with health facility staff. METHODS: Experts participated in a content-development workshop to review an item pool of existing measures, identify gaps and prioritize questions. The resulting questionnaire was field tested in six diverse sites (China, Dominica, Egypt, Kenya, Puerto Rico and St. Christopher & Nevis). Respondents included clinical and non-clinical staff. Questionnaires were self- or interviewer-administered. Analysis of item performance across sites examined both psychometric properties and contextual issues. RESULTS: The key outcome of the process was a substantially reduced questionnaire. Eighteen core questions measure three programmatically actionable drivers of stigma within health facilities (worry about HIV transmission, attitudes towards people living with HIV (PLHIV), and health facility environment, including policies), and enacted stigma. The questionnaire also includes one short scale for attitudes towards PLHIV (5-item scale, α=0.78). CONCLUSIONS: Stigma-reduction programmes in healthcare facilities are urgently needed to improve the quality of care provided, uphold the human right to healthcare, increase access to health services, and maximize investments in HIV prevention and treatment. This brief, standardized tool will facilitate inclusion of stigma measurement in research studies and in routine facility data collection, allowing for the monitoring of stigma within healthcare facilities and evaluation of stigma-reduction programmes. There is potential for wide use of the tool either as a stand-alone survey or integrated within other studies of health facility staff.

Epidemiology of HIV infection in the Middle East and North Africa.

OBJECTIVE: The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region continues to be perceived as a region with very limited HIV epidemiological data, raising many controversies about the status of the epidemic in this part of the world. The objective of this review and synthesis was to address the dearth of strategic interpretable data on HIV in MENA by delineating a data-driven overview of HIV epidemiology in this region. METHODS: A comprehensive systematic review of HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and risk behavior studies in MENA, irrespective of design, was undertaken. Sources of data included Medline for peer-reviewed publications, Google Scholar for other scientific literature published in nonindexed local and regional journals, international organizations reports and databases, country-level reports and database including governmental and nongovernmental organizations publications, as well as various other institutional documents. RESULTS: Over 5000 sources of data related to HIV and STIs were identified and reviewed. The quality of data and nature of study designs varied substantially. There was no evidence for a sustainable HIV epidemic in the general population in any of the MENA countries, except possibly for southern Sudan. The general pattern in different countries in MENA points towards emerging epidemics in high-risk populations including injecting drug users, men who have sex with men (MSM) and to a lesser extent female sex workers, with heterogeneity between countries on the relative role of each of these high-risk groups. Exogenous HIV exposures among nationals linked to travel abroad appeared to be the dominant HIV transmission pattern in a few MENA countries with no evidence for much epidemic or endemic transmission. The role of bridging populations in bridging the HIV infection to the general population was found to be very limited. CONCLUSION: Although they do not provide complete protection against HIV spread, near universal male circumcision and possibly the prevailing sexually conservative cultural norms seemed to have played so far a protective role in slowing and limiting HIV transmission in MENA relative to other regions. If the existing social and epidemiological context remains largely the same, HIV epidemic transmission is likely to remain confined to high-risk populations and their sexual partners, in addition to exogenous exposures. HIV prevention efforts in this region, which continue to be stymied by stigma associated with HIV/AIDS and related risk behaviors, need to be aggressively expanded with a focus on controlling HIV spread along the contours of risk and vulnerability. There is still a window of opportunity to control further HIV transmission among high-risk groups in MENA that, if missed, may entail a health and socioeconomic burden that the region, in large part, is unprepared for.