The Relationship of Multidimensional Health Locus of Control and Attitude toward HIV/AIDS: College Students' Perspectives (2011)

The concept of LOC has been widely used in health related research. Internal LOC was found to have a mediating effect on interventions geared to health promotion, risk reduction, and improve attitude towards a chronic or acute health condition (Bachrach, Huesmann & Peterson, 1977; Cross, March, Lapsley, Byrne, & Brooks, 2006; Haslam & Lawrence, 2004; Seeman & Evans, 1962). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify any existing relationship between health LOC and attitudes towards patients with AIDS. The first cases of AIDS were reported in the U.S. in 1981 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2006), and since then there have been more than 1.5 million diagnoses that resulted in 500,000 fatalities in the U.S. Racial and ethnic minorities, especially African Americans and Hispanics, represent about 71% of newly diagnosed AIDS cases. Youth within the age range of 13-24 years, especially those from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, continue to be a high risk population for HIV and AIDS. In 2004, half of all newly diagnosed cases involved people aged 25 years or less (i.e., high school and college age). African Americans account for 55% of all infections in persons aged 13-24 years (CDC, 2008). According to Kaufman et al. (2007), about 33% American Indians and Alaska Natives diagnosed with AIDS are females (mostly young girls) second only to African Americans at 35%. Young men who have sex with men are at high risk for HIV infection (CDC, 2008). Over the past two decades, AIDS fatalities have dramatically decreased. Patients are living longer and increasingly turning to health care and rehabilitation professionals for social, emotional, physical, economic, and employment support. Therefore, it is imperative that both practicing and aspiring human services and health care professionals be prepared to address the individualized needs to this population in an unbiased manner (Lacock, 2009). However since the start of the AIDS epidemic, patients have been targets of more negative stigma, discrimination, and violence than persons with any other health condition (Deacon & Boulle, 2007). In addition to consequences of the infection, AIDS is often characterized by interrelated social factors that hinder attainment of appropriate quality of life for survivors. The effects of stress, lowered self-esteem and self-efficacy, estrangement from family and friends, and ideation of death further complicate everyday life and generate varying amounts of social stigma against this population (Kaplan, Johnson, Bailey, & Simon, 1987). Worldwide, AIDS stigma manifests itself in the form of ostracism, rejection, discrimination and avoidance of HIV infected people, compulsory HIV testing without prior consent or protection of confidentiality, violence against HIV infected individuals or people who are perceived to be infected with HIV, and the quarantine of HIV infected individuals (UNAIDS, 2006). Inaccurate medical information, external locus on control (i.e., a perception of luck, chance, and others having control over one's health), lack of prior exposure to persons with AIDS, low levels of AIDS related knowledge and self-efficacy, increased status differential between a patient and a service provider, exaggerated perception of risk at home and work, fear of contagion, cultural acceptability of stigma against a high-risk group, and stage of the epidemic continue to be good predictors of negative attitude and stigma towards persons with AIDS (Deacon & Boulle, 2007; Ficarrotto, Grade, Burtnof, Koenig, Bliwise, & Iris, 1989). Most college students and young adults are knowledgeable about HIV/AIDS, but the incidence of unprotected sexual activity and related diseases continue to be quite high among this population, especially men. Such actions may be attributed to substance use and misuse of new found independence in postsecondary settings (Weinhardt et al, 2004). …