Stigmatization of people living with HIV/AIDS and the problem of disclosure: Analysis of the online forum discussions

Abstract

Stigmatization of people living with HIV is the main obstacle to status disclosure. The main difficulties in the study of stigmatization are the difficult access to stigmatized individuals and the effect of the interviewer. Online forums are an important source of data for the research of stigmatization of people living with HIV. The aim of the research was to find out what kind of information regarding the stigmatization of people living with HIV/AIDS can be learned by examining the posts of online forum users. The main focus of the study was to examine how users perceive stigmatization in the context of status disclosure. Data collection was conducted on the “Forum for people living with HIV/AIDS”. Fourteen sections containing relevant discussions were selected for analysis. Data processing and analysis was carried out with NVivo 9. It is concluded that data collection through Internet resources permits obtaining information about vulnerable groups when the purpose of the study is not to build explanatory models but to identify a spectrum of opinions, perceptions and behaviors.