Determination of Midwives’ and Nurses’ Attitudes to AIDS

Purpose: Because of fear of contagion, health professionals have showed negative attitudes to patients with AIDS which are increasing gradually number in Turkey. Therefore, this study was planned to determine of midwives’ and nurses’ attitudes to individuals with AIDS and affecting factors of these attitudes.

Method: The sample of the study was composed of nurses (n= 163) and midwives (n= 31) who worked at Trakya University Medicine Faculty. Data were collected AIDS Attitudes Scale (AAS) developed by Bliwise et al. (1991), and translated to Turkish language by Çimen et al. (2005). Data were analyzed analysis of variance, student-t test and Bonferroni multiplecomparison test.

Results: Total AAS score of the nurse and midwifes was found as 50.1 ±13.5 ( range= 25-81), and moderate. When the sociodemographic and caring patients with AIDS about charecteristics of the study sample and AAS scores were compared; their attitudes to AIDS were more positive in the study sample midwives than nurses, the ages of 18-24 than those at the age of 28 and over, those graduated bachelors’ degree than those graduated associated degree, working below 2 years than working above 3 years, those caring patients with AIDS (%39.7) than those not caring patients with AIDS (%60.3), those learned about AIDS disease than those did not learn, those knowed safety precautions than those did not know precautions ( p< 0.05).

Conclusion: At the end of the study it can be suggested that in service training programs should be changed for midwives’ and nurses’ attitudes to patient with AIDS positively.