Editing Sympathy (section)

==Healthcare==
Sympathy impacts how doctors, nurses, and other members of society think about and treat people with different diseases and conditions. The level of sympathy exhibited by health care providers corresponds to patient characteristics and disease type.<ref name="Etchegary 65–84">{{cite journal|last=Etchegary|first=Holly|title=Stigma and Genetic Risk: Perceptions of Stigma among Those at Risk for Huntington Disease (HD)|journal=Qualitative Research in Psychology|date=7 August 2007|volume=4|issue=1–2|pages=65–84|doi=10.1080/14780880701473417|s2cid=143687806}}</ref>  One factor that influences sympathy is controllability: the degree to which the afflicted individual could have avoided contracting the disease or medical condition. For example, people express less sympathy toward individuals who had control during the event when they acquired HIV.<ref name="Norman 1032–1039">{{cite journal|last1=Norman|first1=L. R.|last2=Carr|first2= R. |last3=Uche|first3= C. |title=The role of sympathy on avoidance intention toward persons living with HIV/AIDS in Jamaica|journal=AIDS Care|date=1 November 2006|volume=18|issue=8|pages=1032–1039|doi=10.1080/09540120600578409|pmid=17012096|s2cid=43684082}}</ref> Homosexual men and prostitute women who have contracted HIV or AIDS are unlikely to receive as much sympathy as heterosexual men and women who contract HIV or AIDS.{{non sequitur|reason=is this meant to be an example of the principle explained in the previous sentences or another sort of factor that influences sympathy? Either case needs to be explained better.|date=August 2023}}

Sympathy in health-related decision-making{{clarify|reason=whose decisions are we talking about? and what role does whose sympathy play in those decisions?|date=August 2023}} is heavily influenced by disease stigma. Disease stigma can lead to discrimination in the workplace and in insurance coverage.<ref name="Etchegary 65–84"/> High levels of stigma are also associated with social hostility. Several factors contribute to the development of disease stigmas, including the disease's time course, severity, and the dangers that the disease might pose to others. Sexual orientation of individual patients has also been shown to affect stigma levels in the case of HIV diagnoses.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Skelton|first=J. A.|title=How Negative Are Attitudes Toward Persons With AIDS? Examining the AIDS–Leukemia Paradigm|journal=Basic and Applied Social Psychology|year=2006|volume=28|issue=3|pages=251–261|doi=10.1207/s15324834basp2803_4|s2cid=26965548}}</ref> Sympathy is associated with low levels of disease stigma.

Sympathy for HIV patients {{vague|reason=in what way?|text=is related to|date=August 2023}} increased levels of knowledge regarding HIV and a lower likelihood of avoiding individuals with HIV.<ref name="Norman 1032–1039"/>