Abstract
Few health care facilities are adequately prepared to manage and care for HIV/AIDS patients in India. Nurses play a critical role in patient care but are often ill-equipped to deal with their own fears of occupational risk and handle the clinical aspects of HIV/AIDS care, leading to stigma and discrimination toward HIV-positive patients. The authors examine the impact of a 4-day HIV/AIDS health education program on knowledge and attitudes of nurses in a government hospital. This education program was developed using a training of trainers model and qualitative research. A total of 21 master trainers underwent 6 days of training and began training of 552 hospital nurses (in 2004-2005). Using a pretest-posttest design, the authors assessed changes in knowledge and attitudes of 371 trained nurses. Significant improvements were seen in nurses' HIV/AIDS knowledge in all areas including care, treatment, and issues of confidentiality and consent. Fear of interaction with people living with HIV/AIDS was reduced significantly. The short course was successful in increasing nurses' knowledge in all aspects. There is great potential to expand this stigma-reduction intervention to other public and private hospitals.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 32-43 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care |
Volume | 18 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 2007 |
Keywords
- HIV/AIDS
- discrimination
- fear reduction
- health education
- health service delivery
- nurses
- stigma
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Advanced and Specialized Nursing