Publication: The role of AIDS volunteers in developing community-based care for people with AIDS in Thailand
Issued Date
2001-01-01
Resource Type
ISSN
10105395
Other identifier(s)
2-s2.0-0035552236
Rights
Mahidol University
Rights Holder(s)
SCOPUS
Bibliographic Citation
Asia-Pacific journal of public health / Asia-Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health. Vol.13, No.1 (2001), 3-8
Suggested Citation
Ayako Mashimo, Hiroko Miura, Shoji Sakano, Akira Hamada, Bang On Thepthien, Takusei Umenai The role of AIDS volunteers in developing community-based care for people with AIDS in Thailand. Asia-Pacific journal of public health / Asia-Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health. Vol.13, No.1 (2001), 3-8. doi:10.1177/101053950101300102 Retrieved from: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/26893
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Authors
Journal Issue
Thesis
Title
The role of AIDS volunteers in developing community-based care for people with AIDS in Thailand
Abstract
The present study analyses the effectiveness of AIDS volunteers in mitigating the stigma attached to People With AIDS (PWAs) within the context of developing community-based care (CBC) in Thailand. A total of 86 trained village health volunteers (T-VHVs) and 99 non-trained village health volunteers (N-VHVs) were enrolled in the study. In addition, 58 villagers in the T-VHV's intervention area and 72 villagers in the non-intervention area were also enrolled. Both T-VHVs and N-VHVs as well as villagers were assessed to determine their level of knowledge with respect to HIV/AIDS and attitudes toward PWAs. Furthermore, we also determined the village health volunteers' level of activity in distributing knowledge of HIV/AIDS in order to prevent and reduce stigma in the community. Although T-VHVs showed a greater depth of knowledge of HIV/AIDS than N-VHVs (p < 0.05), positive attitudes toward PWAs and the level of practice of village health volunteers did not differ significantly between T-VHVs and N-VHVs. While the level of health knowledge of villagers did not differ significantly between the T-VHV's intervention and control areas, a significant difference was observed between the two areas in terms of the villagers' attitudes towards PWAs (p < 0.01). Villagers in the intervention area attached less stigma to PWAs; therefore, T-VHVs played a role in providing basic information on AIDS to the villagers and in mitigating the stigma attached to PWAs. However, these volunteers need to undergo further training through a well-organized training programme in order to obtain a greater depth of knowledge. This is essential for the development of community-based care for PWAs.