Validation and abbreviation of an HIV stigma scale in an adult spanish-speaking population in Urban Peru

The purpose of this study was to validate the Spanish version of the Berger HIV Stigma Scale in an urban Spanish-speaking population in Peru and create a valid and reliable abridged version of the scale. Participants were HIV-infected adults enrolled in an observational study to examine the effectiveness of a community-based antiretroviral therapy adherence intervention. Approximately half of participants were female, and the median age at enrollment was 30.5 years. The Spanish version of the full HIV Stigma Scale was internally reliable, demonstrated good construct validity, and was sensitive to change over time. The full HIV Stigma Scale was abbreviated by removing items that impaired subscale internal reliability, did not correlate with other subscale items, or demonstrated low factor correlations. The resulting abridged scale contained 21 of the 40 original items and revealed properties similar to the full Spanish version.