Investigating of HTLV-1 Stigma among the students, nurses and health personnel in Birjand

Background: stigma among the HTLV1 patients can cause more problems than the disease itself and this fact can cause problems to their cure procedure, so this research was conducted in order to analyze the stigma among the students, nurses and Birjand hygiene personnel. Material and Method: This is a cross-sectional descriptive and analytical study conducted in 2017 among 155 random people within the doctors, nurses, medical staffs and students, knowing that such a research on stigma factors for HTLV-1 yet has not been conducted, several similar HIV stigma factors forms were studied and with the help of professors forms were localized according the cultural differences. The forms were once again studied according to the HTLV-1 specific signs and its endemic features and target group s educational level was also noted and finally with further discussion, questions were made. Data were analyzed using descriptive and analytical approaches (Analysis of variance and post-hoc Tukey Tests) with SPSS 21 software. Result: In this research which was conducted on 155 individuals with the mean age of 27.58±4.42 years old (minimum: 20, maximum: 41). 99 persons (63.9%) were women, 104 persons (67.1%) single and 110 (70.9%) were college students. Mean awareness score among the doctors, nurses, employees and college students comes as it follows: 28.44±4.09, 27.76±7.64, 27.75±5.64 and 27.94±5.37. The results in the analysis variance showed no major difference in the awareness score (F=0.57, P= 0.63). Mean fear score is significantly different among the employees in comparison to doctors, nurses and medical students (29.00±4.37, 25.49±4.60, 25.94±3.90 and 25.81±3.88). Mean stigma scores among our test group are 108.92±14.65, 106.58±13.47, 113.53±12.28 and 110.24±10.98, the analysis variance on the results showed noticeably higher score among the doctors and nurses (P<0.05). Conclusions: the results of the research showed HTLV-1 stigma among the medical staff is significantly higher than doctors, nurses and students this fact can be explained according to the society low awareness of this disease.

کلیدواژه ها:

HTLV-1 ، Stigma ، Doctors ، Health care worker