Stigma and discrimination are common issues for people affected by blood-borne viruses (BBV) and sexually transmissible infections (STI), particularly in healthcare settings.
Dr Adrian Farrugia, Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, is helping to address these issues through the development of stigma reduction resources for healthcare organisations.
“The effects of stigma related to BBV and STI in healthcare are far-reaching, limiting access to prevention, testing and treatment, and undermining the trust required for effective therapeutic relationships,” says Dr Farrugia.
“For example, a recent survey of Australian healthcare workers indicated that just over a third of participants would behave negatively towards someone because of their HIV, hepatitis B or hepatitis C status.”
“To date, the majority of research on BBV and STI-related stigma and discrimination in healthcare settings has focused on how stigma manifests, rather than how to address it,” Dr Farrugia explains.
“Our research sought to inform the development of resources to support healthcare organisations to address these issues. To do this we created a suite of resources for healthcare services. They include the stigma-reduction toolkit, a toolkit implementation guide and a series of workshop videos exploring different aspects of the toolkit and lessons from the implementation pilot.”
Dr Farrugia hopes the resources will support healthcare organisations to address BBV and STI-related stigma and discrimination.
“Our next steps are focused on disseminating these new resources to support their uptake in the Victorian healthcare sector. While the toolkit is for health services, our broader aim is to improve health outcomes for the clients and patients of these services.”
