Knowledge of Iranian nurses about HIV/AIDS: A cross sectional study from Bandar Abbas

Surveying knowledge of nurses about HIV/AIDS can provide an evidence for designing appropriate educational program. This study aimed to investigate the knowledge of a sample of Iranian nurses about patients living with HIV/AIDS in Bandar Abbas, Iran. In this cross sectional study, 150 nurses completed two questionnaires, one dealing with demographic data and the other inquiring knowledge of nurses about HIV/AIDS based on existing instruments developed by Eckstein in 1987. The mean age of studied sample was 31.9±8.2 years. At the time of the study, 63.3% of the respondents had previously cared HIV-infected subjects. Most of the participants (99.3%) knew that drug abusers were at higher risk for HIV acquisition. Most of the participants (97.3%) also answered correctly that person with HIV could be asymptomatic but still infected. Finally, 29.3% thought that recapping used needles is a good way to prevent HIV infection. Those who had participated in educational program had higher overall scores of knowledge than non-participants (10.09±2.18 vs. 9.66±2.32, p=0.002). Results revealed that those previously taken part in educational programs had good knowledge about HIV/AIDS.