Table 2

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion criteriaExclusion criteria
Study population:
  • People living with HIV, sex workers, transpeople, men who have sex with men, people who use drugs or people in prisons.

  • People who belong to more than one group listed above.

  • People whose HIV status or belonging to a key population is unknown or not specified.

Study design:
The following designs IF they report on self-stigma as an outcome:
  • Randomised controlled trials.

  • Controlled clinical trials.

  • Prospective controlled cohort studies.

  • Retrospective controlled cohort studies if baseline exposure data were collected at time of baseline of study.

  • Controlled before and after studies including econometric studies.

  • Interrupted time series studies.

  • Qualitative studies.

  • Observational studies that do not assess any intervention effects.

  • Cross-sectional studies.

  • Psychometric studies validating self-stigma measurements but not assessing intervention effects.

  • Prevalence studies that do not assess intervention effects.

Outcome measure
  • One or more measures of self-stigma relating to HIV status or other infectious diseases among key populations, sex work, drug use, male-to-male intercourse, transgender identity or expression, incarceration.

  • Multidimensional stigma outcome measure that differentiates between self-stigma and other types of stigma (ie, enacted stigma) when reporting intervention effects.

  • A multidimensional stigma outcome measure without differentiation between enacted stigma and self-stigma, making it impossible to infer intervention effects on self-stigma.