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Assessing HIV/AIDS knowledge and stigmatizing attitudes among medical students in Universiti Putra Malaysia

OBJECTIVE: Medical students are future doctors who are trained to treat all kind of diseases including people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) without prejudice. This study was to determine the factors associated with knowledge on HIV/AIDS and stigma towards PLWHA among medical students. METHODS: This...

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Main Authors: Chew, Boon How, Cheong, Ai Theng
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Malaysian Medical Association 2013
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/29568/1/Assessing%20HIVAIDS%20knowledge%20and%20stigmatizing%20attitudes%20among%20medical%20students%20in%20Universiti%20Putra%20Malaysia.pdf
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/29568/
http://www.e-mjm.org/2013/v68n1/index.html
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spelling my.upm.eprints.295682017-08-09T09:23:40Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/29568/ Assessing HIV/AIDS knowledge and stigmatizing attitudes among medical students in Universiti Putra Malaysia Chew, Boon How Cheong, Ai Theng OBJECTIVE: Medical students are future doctors who are trained to treat all kind of diseases including people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) without prejudice. This study was to determine the factors associated with knowledge on HIV/AIDS and stigma towards PLWHA among medical students. METHODS: This was a cross sectional study with stratified random sampling conducted in a public university, Malaysia. The participants were preclinical-year (year 1 and year 2) and clinical-year (year 3 and year 4) medical students. Simple randomisation was carried out after stratification of medical students into preclinical and clinical-year. The selfadministered questionnaires were consisted of sociodemographic data, items assessing HIV/AIDS knowledge and items assessing stigmatisation attitudes towards PLWHA. RESULTS: We had 100% response rate of 340 participants. Pre-clinical and clinical year medical students each contributed 170 (50%). Majority was female (64.1%). About two-thirds (60.6%) was Malay, followed by Chinese (31.2%) and Indian (7.1%). Pre-clinical students were significantly more stigmatizing in subscale of "attitudes towards imposed measures" (t=3.917, p<0.001), even with adjustment for previous encounter and ethnicity (B= 1.2, 95% CI 0.48 to 1.83, p=0.001). On the other hand, clinical students were found to be significantly less comfortable in handling HIV/AIDS cases (t=0.039, p=0.039), even after controlled for previous encounter and ethnicity (B=0.6, 95% CI 0.29 to 0.98, p< 0.001). CONCLUSION: Clinical encounter with PLWHA was associated with higher knowledge in HIV/AIDS. Medical students in preclinical years were having stigmatizing attitude towards imposed measures compared to the clinical years who had more stigmatizing attitude in being less comfortable with PLWHA. Malaysian Medical Association 2013-02 Article NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/29568/1/Assessing%20HIVAIDS%20knowledge%20and%20stigmatizing%20attitudes%20among%20medical%20students%20in%20Universiti%20Putra%20Malaysia.pdf Chew, Boon How and Cheong, Ai Theng (2013) Assessing HIV/AIDS knowledge and stigmatizing attitudes among medical students in Universiti Putra Malaysia. Medical Journal of Malaysia, 68 (1). pp. 24-29. ISSN 0300-5283 http://www.e-mjm.org/2013/v68n1/index.html
institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
building UPM Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Putra Malaysia
content_source UPM Institutional Repository
url_provider http://psasir.upm.edu.my/
language English
description OBJECTIVE: Medical students are future doctors who are trained to treat all kind of diseases including people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) without prejudice. This study was to determine the factors associated with knowledge on HIV/AIDS and stigma towards PLWHA among medical students. METHODS: This was a cross sectional study with stratified random sampling conducted in a public university, Malaysia. The participants were preclinical-year (year 1 and year 2) and clinical-year (year 3 and year 4) medical students. Simple randomisation was carried out after stratification of medical students into preclinical and clinical-year. The selfadministered questionnaires were consisted of sociodemographic data, items assessing HIV/AIDS knowledge and items assessing stigmatisation attitudes towards PLWHA. RESULTS: We had 100% response rate of 340 participants. Pre-clinical and clinical year medical students each contributed 170 (50%). Majority was female (64.1%). About two-thirds (60.6%) was Malay, followed by Chinese (31.2%) and Indian (7.1%). Pre-clinical students were significantly more stigmatizing in subscale of "attitudes towards imposed measures" (t=3.917, p<0.001), even with adjustment for previous encounter and ethnicity (B= 1.2, 95% CI 0.48 to 1.83, p=0.001). On the other hand, clinical students were found to be significantly less comfortable in handling HIV/AIDS cases (t=0.039, p=0.039), even after controlled for previous encounter and ethnicity (B=0.6, 95% CI 0.29 to 0.98, p< 0.001). CONCLUSION: Clinical encounter with PLWHA was associated with higher knowledge in HIV/AIDS. Medical students in preclinical years were having stigmatizing attitude towards imposed measures compared to the clinical years who had more stigmatizing attitude in being less comfortable with PLWHA.
format Article
author Chew, Boon How
Cheong, Ai Theng
spellingShingle Chew, Boon How
Cheong, Ai Theng
Assessing HIV/AIDS knowledge and stigmatizing attitudes among medical students in Universiti Putra Malaysia
author_facet Chew, Boon How
Cheong, Ai Theng
author_sort Chew, Boon How
title Assessing HIV/AIDS knowledge and stigmatizing attitudes among medical students in Universiti Putra Malaysia
title_short Assessing HIV/AIDS knowledge and stigmatizing attitudes among medical students in Universiti Putra Malaysia
title_full Assessing HIV/AIDS knowledge and stigmatizing attitudes among medical students in Universiti Putra Malaysia
title_fullStr Assessing HIV/AIDS knowledge and stigmatizing attitudes among medical students in Universiti Putra Malaysia
title_full_unstemmed Assessing HIV/AIDS knowledge and stigmatizing attitudes among medical students in Universiti Putra Malaysia
title_sort assessing hiv/aids knowledge and stigmatizing attitudes among medical students in universiti putra malaysia
publisher Malaysian Medical Association
publishDate 2013
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/29568/1/Assessing%20HIVAIDS%20knowledge%20and%20stigmatizing%20attitudes%20among%20medical%20students%20in%20Universiti%20Putra%20Malaysia.pdf
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/29568/
http://www.e-mjm.org/2013/v68n1/index.html
_version_ 1643829799266811904
score 13.211869

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