Even after passing through indepth counselling processes, HIV positive and AIDS victims resort to stringent steps as suicide, according to a recent study.
Stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS has been a major barrier in the prevention, care and treatment of the disease, resulting into rampant discrimination. With an aim to provide support systems to victims of HIV and AIDS, a study has tried to tap the stigma attached with the deadly disease. The Social and Development Communication unit of Mudra Institute of Communication Research (MICORE), has undertaken a series of empirical research on HIV-related stigmatisation, based on information collected between September 2008 and March 2009 in different cities and villages of three districts of Gujarat.
According to the 2006 estimates of NACO, national adult HIV prevalence in India is approximately 0.36 percent, amounting to between 2 and 3.1 million people. The estimate says that if an average figure is taken, this comes to 2.5 million people living with HIV and AIDS; almost 50 percent of the previous estimate of 5.2 million.
The study raises doubts about the programs designed by policy-makers and health communicators like National AIDS Control Policy (NACP) and UN agencies, when it comes to addressing HIV-related stigmatisation. "While many studies discuss various effects of stigma, the real process or mechanism involved with its dynamics and the factors behind them remain unearthed. In spite of the procedures and the actual time phases involved with the counselling processes, people infected with HIV/AIDS resort to suicide. This only shows that the programs planned by the policy makers to change perceptions is largely unrealistic," says Satyajeet Nanda, who is heading the research along with research associate Aparimita Pramanik.
The study reveals that perceptions across different levels of exposure differ significantly due to a variety of factors involved at individual as well as institutional levels. Factors such as knowledge of HIV infection cycle and not merely few routes as advertised by different agencies, society's attitude towards HIV positive people that reflects the victims' worthiness, social resilience, infected person's adaptability and availability of supports needed in the physical or economic form, are responsible for the intensity of the stigma.
The researchers believe that understanding the dynamics of the stigma at different times and contexts can help policy-makers and health communicators to design need-based programs. Nanda suggests that comprehensive programs need to be designed in order to provide support systems based on the need of people affected and not merely counselling on few physicological aspects that exist in some Indian government hospitals.
Nands further says that counselling should start before the blood test results are known, since stigmatisation takes shape before the results come, often leaving little space for adapting to counselling with the HIV discovered in the body, thus resulting stringent actions.
The team is now conducting further study to uncover details in terms of stakeholders at different institutional land societal levels, and their role in stigmatisation process at different stages of HIV and AIDS.
