Workplace HIV and AIDS-related discrimination : unravelling the phenomenon’s persistence

Abstract

Despite HIV and AIDS knowledge and attitude change programmes, workplace HIV and AIDS-related discrimination persists in workplaces in many sectors, including the education sector. This study set out to investigate why the phenomenon of workplace HIV and AIDS-related discrimination persists; and to predict which factors were responsible and how they related to HIV and AIDS-related discrimination in the workplace. A stratified random sample of 205 teachers; 123 of whom were from 10 schools of varied backgrounds in Bojanala Region of North West Province of South Africa and 82 from schools around Kampala, Central Region of Uganda was drawn. Twenty-seven respondents of the South African sample participated in both the quantitative survey and in-depth interview while the rest responded to a selfadministered questionnaire. Using a stepwise regression analysis, traditional beliefs predicted workplace HIV and AIDS-related discrimination, explained11% of variance in the second model while the third model explained only 2% more – 13% (R square of 0.136) but each of the three models was significant (p-values of 0.000). Attitudes were the second strongest predictor; and only HIV and AIDS-legal knowledge could predict discrimination but not biomedical HIV and AIDS knowledge. In the in-depth interview, incidents of discrimination were reported, possible reasons for HIV and AIDS-related discrimination were reported; and it was found that workers varied in ways of keeping secrets regarding sensitive information such as colleagues’ HIV-positive status, and cited reasons for revealing such information which included malice, jealousy, moral responsibility, anger and loose talks. There are implications for reducing workplace HIV and AIDS-related discrimination which include: Integrating HIV and AIDS-legal knowledge with biomedical HIV and AIDS knowledge, more efforts should be spent in designing and imparting information to reduce traditional beliefs, develop and evaluate instruments to measure traditional beliefs and HIV and AIDS-legal knowledge; and to study more about secret keeping, particularly in regard to workplace HIV and AIDSrelated discrimination.