Table 2.
Descriptive statistics for items and subscales in the short form 12-item Swahili version of the HIV stigma scale
| Item | Mean item score† (SD) | Corrected item correlation | Mean subscale score‡ (SD) | Reliability | Validity | |||||
| Convergent | Construct | |||||||||
| Internal consistency (Cronbach α) |
Test–retest (ICC) |
§ | ¶ | CFI | RMSEA | TLI | ||||
| Personalised stigma | 4.86 (2.56) | 0.84 (95% CI 0.81 to 0.86) | 0.83 (95% CI 0.71 to 0.90) | 0.357* | 0.327* | |||||
| Some people stop touching me soon they know/realise I am infected with HIV/AIDS. | 1.66 (1.01) | 0.65 | ||||||||
| People I care for stopped calling me after knowing I suffer from AIDs. | 1.63 (1.00) | 0.87 | ||||||||
| I have lost friends for telling/explaining that I have AIDs. | 1.59 (0.96) | 0.88 | ||||||||
| Disclosure concerns | 8.74 (2.37) | 0.53 (95% CI 0.45 to 0.60) | 0.62 (95% CI 0.36 to 0.77) | 0.070 | 0.070 | |||||
| Telling someone that I have AIDs is dangerous.† | 2.24 (1.24) | 0.83 | ||||||||
| I do all I can to keep my AIDs (HIV) status secret. | 2.90 (1.22) | 0.46 | ||||||||
| I am very careful to that person I tell about my HIV status (I am cautious/very careful to (?of) the people I tell my HIV status). | 3.60 (0.78) | 0.21 | ||||||||
| Concerns about public attitudes | 8.52 (3.17) | 0.83 (95% CI 0.80 to 0.86) | 0.79 (95% CI 0.65 to 0.88) | 0.187* | 0.165* | |||||
| People who are suffering from AIDs are treated as if they are not like the other people. | 3.05 (1.18) | 0.68 | ||||||||
| People believe that a person infected with HIV is dirty. | 2.74 (1.26) | 0.84 | ||||||||
| Many people are worried when they are near a person infected with HIV. | 2.75 (1.22) | 0.84 | ||||||||
| Negative self-image | 6.32 (3.00) | 0.74 (95% CI 0.70 to 0.80) | 0.76 (95% CI 0.60 to 0.86) | 0.372* | 0.330* | |||||
| I feel guilty because I am infected with HIV. | 2.11 (1.23) | 0.60 | ||||||||
| People’s attitudes about HIV/AIDs makes me feel very bad. | 2.23 (1.25) | 0.78 | ||||||||
| I feel I am not as good as others because I’m infected with HIV. | 2.01 (1.23) | 0.73 | ||||||||
| Overall | 28.44 (7.68) | 0.80 (95% CI 0.77 to 0.83) | 0.92 (95% CI 0.87 to 0.95) | 0.368* | 0.328* | 0.966 | 0.044 | 0.955 | ||
Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient.
*p<0.001
†Possible score for each item 1–4; higher scores reflect a higher level of perceived HIV-related stigma
‡Possible score 3–12 on each sub-scale; higher scores reflect a higher level of perceived HIV-related stigma.
§correlation between HIV stigma and GAD-7.
¶correlation between HIV stigma and PHQ-9.
CFI, Comparative Fit Index; Cronbach α, Cronbach alpha; RMSEA, root mean square error of approximation; SD, Standard Deviation; TLI, Tucker Lewis Index.