Healthcare providers in Nigerian hospitals and HIV-related stigma: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND

Elimination of barriers to identification of new HIV infections, treatment adherence and retention in care of people living with HIV/AIDS is vital to the attainment of WHO's ambitious vision 2030 of 90:90:90 for HIV/AIDS. However, HIV-related stigma, especially among health workers, has been widely documented as a serious threat to this project. This study explored the factors associated with the stigmatization of people living with HIV among healthcare workers in Nigerian hospitals.

METHOD

Electronic literature search was conducted on eight databases using keywords and MeSH guidelines. Using the PRISMA protocol, studies published from 2003 to 2022 were retrieved and analyzed.

RESULT

Of the 1481 articles identified, 9 met the inclusion criteria. All the included studies were conducted across 10 of the 36 states in Nigeria, with every geo-political zone in Nigeria represented by at least two studies. The overarching themes identified were attitude and beliefs ( = 7), knowledge of HIV/AIDS ( = 3), quality of care ( = 4), education and in-service training ( = 4), and health facility policies and procedures ( = 3). Factors associated with HIV-related stigma among healthcare workers varied by gender, healthcare settings, specialties of health workers, and the presence of institutional stigma reinforcements. Healthcare workers without recent in-service training on HIV/AIDS and those who work in hospitals without anti-HIV/AIDS stigma policies exhibited more HIV-related stigmatizing attitudes.

CONCLUSION

Continuous in-service training of healthcare workers and the development of comprehensive stigma reduction interventions that will be reinforced with anti-HIV stigma policies in clinical settings may facilitate the attainment of national HIV prevention goals.