Knowledge, Attitude & Practice of HIV/AIDS-Related Stigma & Discrimination Reduction among Nursing Students in Southwest Nigeria
BACKGROUND:
One
of the reported obstacles to the achievement of universal access to Human
Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) prevention, treatment, care, and support programs
includes stigma and discrimination from health workers, particularly nurses.
Since nursing students would become future practising nurses and are most
likely exposed to caring for people living with HIV/AIDS (PL WHA) during their
training, it is of great importance to assess the knowledge, attitude, and
practice of student nurses toward the reduction of HIV/AIDS-related stigma and
discrimination.
MATERIALS AND METHODS:
A
descriptive survey research design was used. A total of 150 nursing students
were selected using the simple random sampling technique of fish bowl method
with replacement. Data were obtained using a self-administered (33-item)
validated questionnaire to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of
student nurses with regard to HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination
reduction strategies. Reliability of the tool was tested using Cronbach alpha
(R) yielding a reliability value of 0.72. Data collected were analyzed with
descriptive statistics of frequencies and percentages.
RESULTS:
Majority
(76.0%) of the respondents were females and 82.7% were married. Respondents
were found to have high knowledge (94.0%) of strategies for reducing
HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination. Also, 64% had moderate
discriminatory attitude, 74% engaged in low discriminatory practice, while 26%
engaged in high discriminatory practice.
CONCLUSIONS:
Student
nurses had adequate knowledge about strategies for reducing HIV/AIDS-related
stigma and discrimination; negative discriminatory attitude toward PLWHA and
some form of discriminatory practices exist in participants' training schools.
It is, therefore, recommended that an educational package on reduction of
HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination be developed and implemented for the
participants.
- 1Department of Adult Health, School of Nursing, Babcock University, Ilishan Remo, Ogun, Nigeria.
- 2Department of Community/Maternal and Child Health Nursing, Babcock University, Ilishan Remo, Ogun, Nigeria.
- Iran J Nurs Midwifery Res. 2015 Nov-Dec;20(6):705-11. doi: 10.4103/1735-9066.170011.
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