The Attitudes Toward Women with HIV/AIDS Scale (ATWAS): Development and validation

Over the past 20 years, many scales have been created to measure general at titudes toward People with HIV/AIDS (PWA). A high correlation between negat ive attitudes toward PWA and rejecting attitudes toward homosexuality has b een demonstrated in many studies, which may suggest that although the scale s posit to examine "attitudes toward PWA," they may actually tay into attit udes toward homosexuals with HIV/AIDS. These scales may be inappropriate to use for examining attitudes toward other groups of people with HIV/AIDS (e .g., heterosexual women). The present researchers developed and validated t he Attitudes Toward Women with HIV/AIDS Scale (ATWAS). Principal components analysis of the ATWAS yielded a four-factor structure accounting for 48.6% of the total variance of attitudes toward women with HIV/AIDS. The four fa ctors were Child Care, Myths/Negative Stereotypes, Reproduction/Contracepti on issues, and Sympathy/Transmission Route. The ATWAS was found to have goo d internal consistency (r =.82) and construct validity.