Development and validation of a culturally appropriate HIV/AIDS Stigma Scale for Puerto Rican health professionals in training

Abstract

HIV/AIDS stigma continues to be an obstacle for primary and secondary HIV prevention. Its consequences for the lives of people living with the disease have been well documented and continue to be of great concern for health care providers and researchers in the field. These consequences are worsened when such stigma emanates from health professionals, as this can limit access to services. One of the main obstacles for HIV/AIDS stigma research in Puerto Rico is the absence of quantitative measures to assess HIV/AIDS stigma manifestations among health professionals. In light of this gap in the scientific literature, the main objective of this study was to develop and test the psychometric properties of a culturally appropriate HIV/AIDS Stigma Scale for Puerto Rican health care providers and to develop a reduced form of the scale suitable for use in time-limited clinical settings. The developed measure was based on previous qualitative evidence gathered from Puerto Rican health professionals (Varas-Diaz, Serrano-Garcia, & Toro-Alfonso, 2005) and administered to a sample of 421 health professionals in training. The scale addresses 12 HIV/AIDS stigma dimensions. In quantitative analyses 11 of these dimensions demonstrated satisfactory validity and reliability. These dimensions in turn were subcomponents of a higher-order general stigma factor. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.