AUTHOR=Adhikari Tulsi , Aggarwal Sumit , Nair Saritha , Joshi Aparna , Diwan Vishal , Stephen A. , Devi K. Rekha , Kumar Mishra Bijaya , Yadav Girijesh Kumar , Bangar Sampada Dipak , Sahu Damodar , Yadav Jeetendra , Ovung Senthanro , Gulati Bal Kishan , Sharma Saurabh , Singh Charan , Duggal Chetna , Sharma Moina , Ujagare Dhammasagar , Padmakar Chinchore Sneha , Rebecca Pricilla B. , Rani S. , Selvaraj Pradeep , Xavier Gladston G. , Peter Vanessa , Watson Basilea , Kannan T. , Asmathulla K. S. Md. , Bhattacharya Debdutta , Turuk Jyotirmayee , Palo Subrata Kumar , Kanungo Srikanta , Kumar Behera Ajit , Pandey Ashok Kumar , Zaman Kamran , Misra Brij Ranjan , Kumar Niraj , Behera Sthita Pragnya , Singh Rajeev , Narain Kanwar , Kant Rajni , Sahay Seema , Tiwari Rajnarayan R. , Thomas Beena Elizabeth , Rao M. Vishnu Vardhana 

TITLE=Factors associated with COVID-19 stigma during the onset of the global pandemic in India: A cross-sectional study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.992046

DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2022.992046

ISSN=2296-2565

ABSTRACT=Objective: To assess factors associated with COVID-19 stigmatizing attitudes in the community and stigma experiences of COVID-19 recovered individuals during first wave of COVID-19 pandemic in India. 
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 18 districts located in 7 States in India during September 2020 to January 2021 among adults >18 years of age selected through systematic random sampling. Data on socio demographic and COVID-19 knowledge were collected from 303 COVID-19 recovered and 1976 non-COVID-19 infected individuals from community using a survey questionnaire. Stigma was assessed using COVID-19 Stigma Scale and Community COVID-19 Stigma Scale developed for the study. Informed consent was sought from the participants. Univariate and multivariate binary logistic regression analysis were conducted.
Results: Half of the participants (51.3%) from the community reported prevalence of severe stigmatizing attitudes towards COVID-19 infected while 38.6% of COVID-19 recovered participants reported experiencing severe stigma. Participants from the community were more likely to report stigmatizing attitudes towards COVID-19 infected if they were residents of high prevalent COVID-19 zone (AOR:1.5: CI: 1.2-1.9), staying in rural areas (AOR; 1.5; CI:1.1-1.9), belonged to the age group of 18-30 years (AOR 1.6: CI 1.2-2.0), were male (AOR 1.6: CI; 1.3-1.9), illiterate (AOR: 2.7: CI: 1.8-4.2) or living in Maharashtra (AOR 7.4: CI: 4.8-11.3). COVID-19 recovered participants had higher odds of experiencing stigma if they had poor knowledge about COVID-19 transmission (AOR 2.8; CI. 1.3-6.3), were staying for 6-15 years (AOR 3.24; CI: 1.1-9.4) in the current place of residence or belonged to Delhi (AOR: 5.3; CI: 1.04-26.7).
Conclusion: Findings indicated presence of stigmatizing attitudes in the community as well as experienced stigma among COVID-19 recovered across selected study sites in India during the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic. Study recommends timely dissemination of factual information to populations vulnerable to misinformation and psychosocial interventions for individuals affected by stigma.