Medical Stigma

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Are Pharmaceutical companies Addresssing-stigma

Recommends that treatment efficacies be made known to the public in efforts that model the public relations and marketing communication practices of other healing disciphines

Pdf 270 kb

BioEthics: Palliative Care at Home: Reflections on HIV/AIDS Family Caregiving Experiences

This study explored the day-to-day experiences of family members providing care at home for their dying loved one with HIV/AIDS. In-depth interviews with seven caregivers were analyzed using grounded theory qualitative methods. A conceptualization of the family caregiving experience portrays HIV/AIDS caregiving as an intense, emotional, and powerful experience filled with pride and enrichment, and conversely, with anger and disillusionment.

Cure versus care

The term 'Quality of Life' is often heard... and said at the Hospice to remind us of our main aim and purpose. As most of our patients have been diagnosed with a terminal disease, further treatment is often inappropriate and cure is not always an option.

Death a Result of Insufficient Care

Poor staffing was the reason cited for the death of Mike Hurewitz, the living liver donor at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, who died after a portion of his liver was transplanted into his brother.

Dental Management of the HIV-Infected Patient

Because the law is evolving and varies in some respects from state to state, dentists are advised to consult with their own personal attorneys for legal advice. That said, the easiest way to avoid legal problems - and to lessen the need for legal advice - is for dentists to treat HIV-infected patients just like they treat their other patients.

Doctors' and Nurses' Knowledge and Attitudes

This report presents responses to AIDS-related questions from a national sample of 958 physicians and 1,520 registered nurses in 1990-91. Questions included willingness to treat AIDS patients and whether they believe that they were professionally obligated and should be legally required to do so, attitudes toward homosexual men and intravenous drug users, knowledge about HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) transmission, perceptions of the risk of HIV contagion, precautionary practices, trust in HIV authorities, career plans, and attitudes toward mandatory testing and mandatory reporting.

Effect of Training Program on Physicians' Attitudes towards knowledge and Practice Patterns Related to Assessment and Screening of Clients with HIV/AIDS

it does point out that a training program can alter physicians' screening and testing practices as well as their attitudes towards clients with HIV/AIDS. This has implications for providers in remote rural areas or in medically underserved communities where access to formalized continuing education may be limited or offered at times not compatible with a busy practice.

Effects of Hospital Staffing and Organizational Climate on Needlestick Injuries to Nurses

Nurses from units with low staffing and poor organizational climates were generally twice as likely as nurses on well-staffed and better-organized units to report risk factors, needlestick injuries, and near misses.

Expectations and social interactions of children with and without mental retardation.

Mentally retarded and nonretarded perceiver children (n = 40) conversed by telephone with a child who was described as a special or regular education student. Perceivers reported that special and regular education telephone partners behaved differently during the conversation even though observers who were unaware of how telephone partners had been described did not detect behavioral differences between them. These same observers did detect differences in stereotype related social behaviors of mentally retarded and nonretarded perceivers, but only when perceivers thought they were speaking to a regular education student. Observer ratings also suggested that nonretarded perceivers "talked down" to special education telephone partners. These results suggest that stereotypes about children with and without learning problems may become self-fulfilling prophecies by altering how children treat one another and by affecting how they interpret each other's behaviors.

Factors associated with refusal to treat HIV-infected patients: the results of a national survey of dentists in Canada

This study investigated dentists refusal to treat patients who have HIV. METHODS: A survey was mailed to a random sample of all licensed dentists in Canada,

Guidelines for National Human Immunodeficiency Virus Case Surveillance, Including Monitoring for Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

CDC recommends that all states and territories conduct case surveillance for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection as an extension of current acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) surveillance activities. The expansion of national surveillance to include both HIV infection and AIDS cases is a necessary response to the impact of advances in antiretroviral therapy, the implementation of new HIV treatment guidelines, and the increased need for epidemiologic data regarding persons at all stages of HIV disease.

Healthcare Workers

By the end of the 20^th century, 33.6 million men, women and children had been infected with HIV.  AIDS is clearly one of the greatest public health challenges of the era and, whilst there are continuous calls for a multisectoral response to the epidemic, there is abundant evidence that that response must, in most instances, be led by dedicated, committed health care workers

Pdf 431 kb

Hepatitis C a Greater Threat to Healthcare Workers Than HIV

The risk that healthcare workers will become infected with hepatitis C virus (Hepatitis C Virus) following an accidental needlestick is 20 to 40 times greater than their risk of HIV infection, according to data presented here at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Disease.

Hepatitis C from Gammagard®, An Intravenous Immunoglobulin [IGIV]

In February, 1994 Baxter Healthcare Corporation withdrew from world markets Gammagard®, an immunoglobulin administered intravenously to those with acquired or congential immune disorders, after 112 people in the U.S. were reported having symptoms of hepatitis C, the most fatal form of the this liver disease.

Hepatitis C: a review of Australia’s response

"The newly diagnosed person also has to make decisions about who to tell about the diagnosis and to be aware of the possible consequences. Many report feeling isolated, ‘permanently scarred’ or ‘tainted’. People living with hepatitis C live with fears, myths and misinformation about the disease and with the projected anxieties of others."

"Discrimination, or the potential for it, is often reported. Hepatitis C has acquired the label ‘the drug addict’s disease’, thus adding to the stigma attached to a communicable disease. Discrimination can occur in social networks and in institutional settings such as schools, hospital, health and dental clinics, and child-care facilities, affecting access to services."

International Red Cross Launches Campaign Against Stigma of
AIDS

The international Red Cross announced Monday that it is
launching a new campaign to tackle the stigma and discrimination faced by people with HIV/AIDS -  prejudice that it says stokes the worldwide epidemic.

Issues of Racism in Healthcare Research

Decreasing health disparities and improving health services for minority and at-risk populations is one of the goals of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Healthy People 2010 initiative. However, the racism imbedded within American society, as evident through differences in areas such as socioeconomic status, living conditions, and educational opportunity, may be inadequately addressed in both medical and nursing research.

JACHO: Delays in treatment 

While hospital Emergency Departments (EDs) are the source of just over one-half of all reported sentinel event cases of patient death or permanent injury due to delays in treatment,

JAMA: The Role of Law and Litigation

An important subset of litigation relates to HIV/AIDS in the public health and health care systems, since the law affects health care institutions and professionals, patients, and public health policy in America. This subset of HIV/AIDS litigation includes testing and reporting; privacy, the duty to warn, and the right to know; physician standards of care in prevention and treatment; and discrimination and access to health care

National Surveillance of Dialysis-Associated Diseases in the United States, 1997

Incidence and types of infections among patients and staff

 117 kb pdf

Needlestick prevention bill includes new workplace rules

Each year 600,000 to 800,000 health care workers, including many physicians, are accidentally stuck by contaminated needles or other sharp objects. A bill that recently passed Congress aims to reduce that number.

New Postexposure Protocol for Occupational Exposure to Bloodborne Diseases

From a recent study showing that zidovudine prophylaxis after percutaneous exposure to HIV can reduce the risk of seroconversion by almost 80 percent,

Nurses: Fighting AIDS Stigma Caring for All

Stigma and discrimination block the march forward against HIV/AIDS. They fuel the HIV/AIDS epidemic by creating a culture of secrecy, silence, ignorance, blame, shame and victimization. Stigma prevents communities from addressing HIV/AIDS with the appropriate health care services or legal and educational strategies. What stops them is HIV prejudice. And all that will stop HIV prejudice is speaking openly about the facts

182 kb pdf

Occupationally Acquired HIV: The Vulnerability of Health Care Workers under Workers ' Compensation Laws

Approximately 800 000 needle-sticks and other sharp injuries from contaminated medical devices occur in health care settings each year, of which an estimated 16000 are contaminated by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Health care workers who are Occupationally infected by HIV are at risk of being left without workers' compensation coverage. In some states, the definition of an occupational disease is so restrictive that infected health care workers are unlikely to qualify for benefits. For those who are able to meet the definition, compensation is often inadequate.

On Stigma and its Public Health Implications

One of the curious features of literature concerning stigma is the variability that exists in the definition of the concept. In many circumstances investigators provide no explicit definition and seem to refer to something like the dictionary definition ("a mark of disgrace") or to some related aspect like stereotyping or rejection (e.g. a social distance scale). When stigma is explicitly defined many commentators turn to Goffman quoting his definition of stigma as an "attribute that is deeply discrediting" and that reduces the bearer "from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one".

Patients of Brooklyn Clinic Are Sought After Outbreak of
Hepatitis C

The infected patients all underwent endoscopic exams, in which a flexible lighted instrument is used to inspect the stomach or bowel lining, over a three- to four-day period at the end of March at the Bay Ridge Endoscopy and Digestive Health Center

PHENOMENOLOGY

Phenomenology is a movement in philosophy that has been adapted by certain sociologists to promote an understanding of the relationship between states of individual consciousness and social life. As an approach within sociology, phenomenology seeks to reveal how human awareness is implicated in the production of social action, social situations and social worlds

Predictors of Mother-Adolescent Discussions About Condoms: Implications for Providers Who Serve Youth

Parents who communicate effectively about sexuality and safer sex behaviors can influence their adolescents' risk-taking behavior. Health care providers, particularly physicians, can facilitate this communication by providing to parents information about the sexual behavior of adolescents, the risks that adolescents encounter, condom use, condom effectiveness, and how to discuss condoms. They also can make referrals to programs that teach communication skills.

Red Cross Failing Blood Test

The risk of contaminated blood is one reason why the Food and Drug Administration is going to the mat with the Red Cross, which provides half of the nation's blood supply and has been violating blood safety laws for17 years.

Risk and Management of Blood-Borne Infections in Health Care Workers

Exposure to blood-borne pathogens poses a serious risk to health care workers (HCWs). We review the risk and management of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), and hepatitis C virus (Hepatitis C Virus) infections in HCWs and also discuss current methods for preventing exposures and recommendations for postexposure prophylaxis. In the health care setting, blood-borne pathogen transmission occurs predominantly by percutaneous or mucosal exposure of workers to the blood or body fluids of infected patients. Prospective studies of HCWs have estimated that the average risk for HIV transmission after a percutaneous exposure is approximately 0.3%, the risk of HBV transmission is 6 to 30%, and the risk of Hepatitis C Virus transmission is approximately 1.8%.

Sharing of Drug Preparation Equipment as a Risk Factor for Hepatitis C

Among injection drug users who do not share syringes, an important proportion of Hepatitis C Virus infections may be attributed to cooker/cotton sharing.

Stigma and Global Health: Developing a Research Agenda

"Typically, miners who are believed to be infected are shunned. They sit alone in buses that carry workers to the pit. They eat alone in the company kitchens because their colleagues are afraid to share utensils or crockery with them."

Stigma Interventions and Research for International Health

For public health, however, a suitable framework requires a working definition of stigma that recognizes the distinctive features of particular diseases in particular social and cultural contexts. One or a combination of various approaches to interventions may focus on controlling or treating target health problems, countering tendencies of those who stigmatize others, and supporting those who are stigmatized.

Structural Collapse Sets the Scene for the Rapid Spread of HIV/AIDS Among Young People in Eastern Europe

The number of HIV infections in Eastern Europe has increased nine-fold in just three years, growing from less than 30,000 HIV infections in 1995 to an estimated 270,000 infections by December 1998. Ukraine has had the most dramatic epidemic, with an estimated 110,000 people living with HIV in December 1997, two-thirds of them injecting drug users. Since then the epidemic has grown rapidly

Study Fosters Patient-friendly Hospital Environment

As the number of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) continues to rise, so do the demands on health care systems throughout the world. Stigma and discrimination against PLHA are reported to be severe in many public and private hospitals in India, a problem that is often aggravated by insufficient training of health care workers, lack of supplies to enact universal precautions, and inadequate policies.

The Discriminatory Attitudes of Health Workers against People Living with HIV

THE PSYCHIATRIC NOSOLOGY OF
EVERYDAY LIFE: CATEGORIES IN IMPLICIT
ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY

A basic assumption of constructionism is that knowledge originates in social interchanges. That is, people's everyday knowledge about "the way things are" is not given by the real world but is the result of an ongoing process of communication: People speak, write, and use signs and symbols actively and cooperatively and end up creating "reality" out of negotiated understandings.

VIOLENCE

Today more than 5 million U.S. hospital workers from many occupations perform a wide variety of duties. They are exposed to many safety and health hazards, including violence. Recent data indicate that hospital workers are at high risk for experiencing violence in the workplace.