Relationships Between Demographic, Clinical, and Health Care Provider Social Support Factors and Internalized Stigma in People Living With HIV

Internalized HIV stigma (IHS) threatens people living with HIV (PLWH) and the public. Our purpose was to identify relationships between PLWH perceptions of IHS and demographic, clinical, overall health, health-related quality of life, and perceived health care provider (HCP) social support. Using survey data from PLWH (n = 292) in an urban HIV clinic, we first examined the reliability and validity of an existing IHS measure. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that the IHS score was composed of three factors: (a) Perception of Negative Societal Beliefs, (b) Fear of Disclosure, and (c) Perception of Negative HCP Beliefs, which were used as dependent variables in the multivariate analysis. In multivariate regression models, gender, education, quality of life, Getting Needed Care, and Trust in HCP were significantly related to at least one IHS factor. Our findings advance the measurement of IHS and provide a foundation for intervention development to reduce IHS in care settings.