Informing Strategies as a Factor of Prejudice Reducing towards Stigmatized Groups

Currently, the problem of HIV infection is acute in Russia. At the moment, more and more specialists are claiming not even an epidemic, but a pandemic of the disease. Now according to official statistics in Russia, more than 1% of the population is infected with HIV/AIDS (Anti-AIDS, 2019). The situation can be considered critical, given the low prevalence of measures to reduce the epidemic and the lack of mass education about HIV infection. At the same time, it is difficult to count on official statistics because of only tested and confirmed HIV diagnoses. The likelihood of revealing a diagnosis of HIV patients is also closely related to fear of ostracism, prejudice and censure. As a result, even people who suspect who suspect they have been infected with the human immunodeficiency virus rarely undergo testing for the disease. The risk also increases due to fear of revealing their status to the partner, which only increases the number of infected. The above circumstances lead us to the following situation. We can say that the spread of HIV infection is often associated with fear of stigma. The work of Sengupta and colleagues (2010, 2011) refers to the clear manifestation of prejudice, stigmatizing behavior and unwillingness to help and support people living with HIV / AIDS (hereinafter PLWHA). Unfortunately, however, preventive programmes rarely consider stigma as a factor in the spread of the disease. It is likely that the frequent negative coloring of HIV / AIDS information materials can also negatively affect the spread of the epidemic. Concerning the general provisions on HIV infection, information on the methods of infection may include negative stereotyping of groups of infected people (such as injecting drug users, people in prison, people who are engaged in homosexual relationships, etc.). Summarizing, the stigmatization of HIV infection is often supported by the negative content of informing the public about the disease, which is often not enough to achieve a stable level of awareness among the Russian population. At the same time, lack of awareness also leads to an increase in the number of people infected with HIV. On the basis of all the above, it is worth moving on to a more detailed description of the research. Object and subject of research The object of this work is to study attitudes towards PLWHA in the context of common realities. The subject of this work is the effect of informing on the perception of multiple stigma of HIV-infected people in Russia. Purpose and objectives of the research The main purpose of this research is to study the effects of different types of information on the double stigma of PLWHA . In accordance with the goal, the following research objectives were set: A theoretical overview of stigmatization of PLWHA in terms of overall observability Description of identified patterns and facts of HIV stigma functioning in the context of research hypotheses Development of an adequate methodology for testing the selected work hypotheses Performing a selection of a representative sample and data Processing, analysis and discussion of the results obtained, identification of research prospects Research hypotheses There is a difference with the perception of PLWHA depending on the emphasis in the content of information interventions. A) Awareness raising regarding PLWHA will have more negative stigmatizing effects. B) Information aimed at encouraging empathy will have a mitigating effect on stigmatization of PLWHA. The perception of PLWHA will differ depending on the type of double HIV stigma. Used methods and techniques of analysis The work used an analysis of theoretical literature, data collection was carried out in a survey format on an online platform. The results were evaluated by statistical processing in RStudio. Techniques applied in the work include basic aspects of attitudes towards PLWHA. The following were used: the scale of social distance, the scale of emotions experienced in relation to PLWHA, the scale for measuring the overall attitude to the group of PLWHA, the partially modified SAT-PLWHA-S method (Beaulieu et al, 2014). The hypotheses of the study were not confirmed. The difference in the perception of PLWHA was only in the factor of assessment of assistance and well-being, provided that information was directed at fear. The other variables showed no significant differences. The vignettes describing the double stigma of PLWHA did not work in any way. At the same time, one cannot fail to notice that the factors of measuring attitudes towards PLWHA have changed markedly. Several scales were removed from the analysis, 2 factors combined statements from two different values of the variables. The phenomena of regression analysis seem to be interesting for further research, especially the ratio of the respondents' acquaintance with PLWHA and the general characteristic of assessing their own attitude to HIV/AIDS stigma.