%0 Journal Article
%T Measuring HIV Stigma at the Family Level: Psychometric Assessment of the Chinese Courtesy Stigma Scales (CCSSs)
%A Hongjie Liu
%A Yongfang Xu
%A Yehuan Sun
%A Levent Dumenci
%J PLOS ONE
%D 2014
%I Public Library of Science (PLoS)
%R 10.1371/journal.pone.0092855
%X Courtesy stigma is the stigmatization a person perceives or experiences due to their association with a stigmatized individual or group. Most HIV-related stigma scales have been developed for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs), but not for their HIV-uninfected family members. To date, few measurement scales have been designed to measure the degree of stigma among both PLWHAs and their HIV-uninfected family members at the family level. We developed a set of courtesy stigma scales and estimated their reliability and validity from 256 PLWHAs and 256 of their HIV-uninfected family members. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed in two independent samples: a development sample (N = 216) and a validation sample (N = 296), respectively. Two factors (¡°public stigma¡± and ¡°self-perceived stigma¡±) had high internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's alpha coefficient between 0.83¨C0.90) and good construct validity (standardized factor loading range: 0.37¨C0.95) in both samples. These findings document that the newly developed brief instrument is a psychometrically sound measure of HIV-related stigma among both PLWHAs and their HIV-uninfected family members.
%U http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0092855