24 Med J Malaysia Vol 68 No 1 February 2013 SUMMARY Objective: Medical students are future doctors who are trained to treat all kind of diseases including people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) without prejudice. This study was to determine the factors associated with knowledge on HIV/AIDS and stigma towards PLWHA among medical students. Methods: This was a cross sectional study with stratified random sampling conducted in a public university, Malaysia. The participants were preclinical-year (year 1 and year 2) and clinical-year (year 3 and year 4) medical students. Simple randomisation was carried out after stratification of medical students into preclinical and clinical-year. The self- administered questionnaires were consisted of socio- demographic data, items assessing HIV/AIDS knowledge and items assessing stigmatisation attitudes towards PLWHA. Results: We had 100% response rate of 340 participants. Pre-clinical and clinical year medical students each contributed 170 (50%). Majority was female (64.1%). About two-thirds (60.6%) was Malay, followed by Chinese (31.2%) and Indian (7.1%). Pre-clinical students were significantly more stigmatizing in subscale of “attitudes towards imposed measures” (t=3.917, p<0.001), even with adjustment for previous encounter and ethnicity (B= 1.2, 95% CI 0.48 to 1.83, p= 0.001). On the other hand, clinical students were found to be significantly less comfortable in handling HIV/AIDS cases (t=0.039, p=0.039), even after controlled for previous encounter and ethnicity (B=0.6, 95% CI 0.29 to 0.98, p< 0.001). Conclusion: Clinical encounter with PLWHA was associated with higher knowledge in HIV/AIDS. Medical students in preclinical years were having stigmatizing attitude towards imposed measures compared to the clinical years who had more stigmatizing attitude in being less comfortable with PLWHA. KEY WORDS: knowledge on HIV/AIDS, stigma, people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), Medical Students INTRODUCTION Medical education is one of the professional trainings that aim to turn a lay person into a professional, a doctor in this context. Transformation in theoretical perspectives and teaching strategies are abound in medical education in order to produce tomorrow doctors who are not only knowledgeable and skilful but also behave professionally 1,2 . A newly graduated doctor is almost instantly employed to be a house officer in this country. From day one in the hospital, they are expected to clerk all patients who are admitted into their ward 3 . Thus, their professional behaviour with the patient does impress, impact and decide on the course of the disease, treatment adherence and prognosis of the patient, especially patient with serious and frightening conditions such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) 4,5 . HIV/AIDS is one of the major health burdens worldwide. Globally, it was estimated that 33.3 million of people living with HIV (adults and children) in 2009; adult women comprised 15.9 million and children 2.5 million 6 . Although the HIV incidence and mortality has been falling worldwide (except Eastern Europe and Central Asia) over the last decade, the level of overall new infections and the number of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) were still high. In Malaysia, up to December 2011, there were about 112 thousands PLWHA with majority of them were young adults aged between 13 to 49 years 7 . With increasing PLWHA, any effective health care systems in the world will need to equip its facilities for prevention and treatment of PLWHA, more importantly to encourage positive attitude among its health care professionals in dealing with PLWHA. Health care professionals especially doctors and nurses are expected to deliver equal and unbiased care to these patients. Stigma is an attribute of social relation that exists when the following components occur: labelling, stereotyping, separation, status loss and discrimination 8 . HIV related stigma poses multiple consequences on physical and psychological well-being of PLWHA including affecting their quality of life 9-11 . In this country, it was reported that perceived stigma from health care providers and community was a major barrier for PLWHA to access prevention and treatment services from health care system 5,12 . Furthermore, studies have shown that presence of stigmatization and Assessing HIV/AIDS Knowledge and Stigmatizing Attitudes among Medical Students in Universiti Putra Malaysia B H Chew, MMed (FAM MED)*, AT Cheong, MMed (FAM MED)** *Department of Family Medicine & Unit of Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia, **Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia ORIGINAL ARTICLE This article was accepted: 18 December 2012 Corresponding Author: Chew Boon How, Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia Email: chewboonhow@yahoo.com / chewbh@medic.upm.edu.my