Attitudes of dental hygiene students toward individuals with AIDS

This study was undertaken to gain a better understanding of dental hygiene students' attitudes toward AIDS and homosexuals. Each respondent received a 500-word patient case vignette and two scales for recording impressions of the person described in the vignette. There were four vignettes, identical except that the portrayed individual's illness was identified as either AIDS or leukemia, and sexual preference as either homosexual or heterosexual. No differences in overall ratings on either scale were noted based on the patient's disease status or sexual preference or the interaction between sexual preferences with disease type. Similarly, neither scale displayed significant differences on any of the individual items based on the patient's sexual preference. There were, however, significant differences for several individual items on both scales based on the patient's disease type; students responded more negatively to individuals with AIDS. It appears, therefore, that the hygiene students displayed no bias toward homosexuals and only very minimal bias toward individuals with AIDS.