Psychologists' attitudes toward patients with AIDS

Abstract

The primary purposes of this study were to examine psychologists' attitudes toward patients with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), and to determine if attitudes were related to patients' sexual orientations. Additionally the relationships between attitudes and the following variables were investigated: (a) knowledge about AIDS, (b) professional and personal contact with people with AIDS, and (c) demographic characteristics. Subjects were 400 randomly selected psychologists. All subjects were mailed a survey packet that included a vignette describing a young man who was either heterosexual or homosexual and who was ill with either AIDS or leukemia, thus setting up a 2 x 2 factorial design. After reading the vignette, subjects completed an attitude measure, a factual test about AIDS, and a demographic survey that included measures of professional and personal contact with AIDS patients. Analysis of variance, t tests and correlations were used to analyze the results. Results revealed a main effect for sexual orientation. Psychologists rated the homosexual patient more favorably than the heterosexual patient, regardless of disease. Attitude and knowledge were not related, possibly because the knowledge measure used was not difficult enough to discriminate among respondents. Attitude was not directly related to amount of contact with AIDS patients, but the perceived impact of personal contact with AIDS patients was strongly positively associated with attitude. Age was the only demographic variable related to attitude. Older subjects rated patients in all treatment conditions more negatively. This study's generalizability is limited due to the majority of respondents being married, white males in their fifties working in private practice. More research is needed with diverse groups of psychologists. More research is needed on psychologists' attitudes toward different sub-groups of AIDS patients as well.