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HIV-Positive Women Who Want Kids May Feel Stigmatized by Physicians

For some women, planning a family can be the first step towards one of life’s most rewarding experiences. But a study led by Ryerson University researchers has found strong evidence that some HIV-positive women feel that they are being judged negatively by their healthcare providers for wanting to become moms and feel stigmatized by their physicians due to their medical condition.

Anne Wagner, a PhD student at Ryerson’s department of psychology’s HIV Prevention Lab, is the lead author of a new study that examines social stigmas perceived by HIV-positive women living in Ontario. The study is part of a larger report that examines HIV-positive women’s desire to have children.

“In this study, I was interested in the construct of HIV stigma, how the women perceived it and what was contributing to it,” said Wagner, who is presenting studies on HIV homeless youth in Canada and adults living in India at the International AIDS Conference.

The researchers surveyed 159 women who are HIV positive and living in Ontario. These women were recruited from various AIDS service organizations, HIV clinics, and community health centers. Slightly over one half of the women (55%) were born outside Canada, mostly from HIV-endemic countries such as sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean; the other group was born in Canada. They were asked to answer demographic-related questions (age, education level, birthplace, ethnicity, income); medical questions relating to their HIV treatments; and psychological questions (level of anxiety, depression). They were also asked if they felt they were being negatively judged by their healthcare providers, family, and friends about their desire to have children.

The research also uncovered stark differences between the women born outside and within Canada when it came to the factors contributing to stigmas perceived because of their HIV-positive status. For those not born in Canada, being negatively judged by a physician in Canada for wanting to become pregnant was the strongest predictor of HIV stigma. On the other hand, women born in Canada who reported higher levels of anxiety and lower levels of education were more likely to feel stigmatized by their medical condition. Women born in Canada also reported they felt negatively judged by their healthcare providers, but not to the same degree as those women born outside of the country. Interestingly for both groups, family and friends did not play a significant role in the perceived stigmatization of the women’s desire to have kids.

“Physicians may also be following out-of-date guidelines created in the late 1980s recommending that HIV-positive women shouldn’t plan a family, which could explain this perceived stigmatization by these women,” Wagner said.

— Source: Ryerson University