Attitude of medical students towards AIDS and Leukemia patients

Objective: To examine the attitudes of undergraduate medical students' towards patients with AIDS vs. patients with Leukemia. Methodology: A cross sectional survey with a purposive non probability sample on 205 undergraduate medical students was conducted from July 2011 to October 2011. Prejudicial attitudes and willingness to interact were measured based on four case vignettes using the Prejudicial Evaluation Scale (PES) and Social Interaction Scale (SIS). SPSS 17 was used for the data analysis and independent sample t test was used to calculate the significant difference among the mean scores of the inventories and each item of the inventory. Paired t test was used to analyze the difference in the attitude of the medical students before and after attending the medical school. Results: Highly significant differences were observed in the attitude of medical students determined by the overall mean scores of their responses towards patient with AIDS (44.45 +/- 9.32) and (24.22 +/- 11.69) versus Leukemic patient (49.65 +/- 10.73) and (20.67 +/- 7.84) of PES (p < 0.001) and SIS (p < 0.01) inventories respectively. Comparison of individual item on these scale revealed several items to be significantly different for patient with AIDS vs. Leukemic patient showing negative biasness towards this stigmatized group. Conclusions: Undergraduate medical students revealed negative biases against patients with AIDS and reported much less willingness to interact with these patients than with leukemic patients.