KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE OF STUDENT NURSES TOWARDS AIDS

AIDS, one of the most perilous infectious diseases which has killed lots of victims all over the world. Considering the fact that nowadays, this disease is incurable, the only way of challenging it, is prevention. Since student nurses are in continuous contact with these Patients. A survey is conducted to assess their knowledge and attitude towards HIV and AIDS. To determine the knowledge and attitude of student nurses to wards AIDS. Design: This was a cross – sectional descriptive study. Sample: 147 senior student nurses contributed in this study. Finding revealed that 61.8% of the students were not knowledgeable enough about the ways of the transmission of the disease, and 71.9% of them did not know the time of transmission from mothers to their fetuses, regarding the prevention pathways 68% of the sample group were not familiar with the necessity of isolation and 73.9% of them did not know how to establish protective measures, while doing physical examination of patients suffering from AIDS. Concerning their attitudes towards disease 80.6% of the student nurses belived that the patients should be cared in special hospitals and 74.5% of them mentioned that they will avoid mouth to mouth respirations for these patients if it is needed. On the other hand 97.3% of them were eager to obtain more information about this disease. The results of this research illustrated the importance of sufficient teaching programs for student nurses which may improve the qullity of care for patients and decrease the likelihood of transmission of the disease.