Introduction: AIDS is one of the problems of the health system, the control and prevention of which requires improving health literacy and changing the attitude of people in society towards infected patients.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between general health literacy and AIDS health literacy with the attitude of the population over 18 years old in Najaf Abad city regarding HIV patients.
Material and Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive analytical study surveyed 274 individuals from urban and rural areas of the city in 2019, utilizing a multi-stage random sampling method. Participants completed three standardized electronic questionnaires on HIV attitudes, public health literacy, and AIDS literacy. The data were analyzed using SPSS 26, focusing on correlation coefficients and linear regression.
Results: The average age of the participants is 41.72 ± 15.79, and 70.4% were married and 72.26% of the participants were from the middle economic class of the society. The discriminatory attitude towards HIV patients was significantly higher in men than in women (P=0.007). The results showed that gender (P=0.0001), university education (P=0.013), general health literacy score (P=0.011) have an effect on the score of discriminatory attitude towards people with HIV (P > 0.005).
Conclusion: Given the importance of health literacy and its strong link to community attitudes towards HIV sufferers, it is recommended to assess the attitudes and health literacy of the target community at various intervals to plan targeted education and effective interventions.