1Assistant Professor, Mental Health (Psychiatric) Nursing Specialty, PSG College of Nursing, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu
2Associate Professor, Adhiparasakthi College of Nursing, Melmaruvathur – 603 319, Kancheepuram District, Tamil Nadu
3Principal, Adhiparasakthi College of Nursing, Melmaruvathur – 603 319, Kancheepuram District, Tamil Nadu
Taking care of patients with HIV or AIDS requires special nursing knowledge and skills. Nurses, in particular, are the largest paramedical professional group caring for patients with AIDS.
To assess the knowledge and attitude of staff nurses on AIDS patients.
The survey approach and non experimental descriptive design is used.
Meenakshi Mission Hospital and Research Centre at Madurai.
40 staff nurses, fulfilling the inclusive criteria, were selected using non probability convenient sampling technique.
A structured questionnaire consisting of 20 questions knowledge on care of AIDS patients and 3 point Likert scale for attitude was used. Both inferential and descriptive statistics were used for analysis.
The correlation between the level of knowledge and level of attitude (r) is found to be positive correlation (r = 0.95). There was a significant association of demographic variable i.e., age, marital status, overall experience in nursing service and experience in general ward with knowledge of staff nurses at p<0.05 level. But there is no significant association of demographic variables professional education with knowledge of staff nurses. There was a significant association of demographic variable marital status, overall experience in nursing service and experience in general ward with attitude of staff nurses at p< 0.05 level. There was no significant association of demographic variable age and professional education with attitude of staff nurses.
The study concludes that the nurses with moderately adequate knowledge and inadequate knowledge and attitude need more information and training on AIDS patients which may enhance the knowledge and attitude to the adequate level.
Adequate assessment, evaluation, supervision and instruction of staff nurses while they are doing AIDS patients can improve their attitudes to provide effective care.
Staff Nurses, AIDS patients, Knowledge, Attitude
