Nursesû Knowledge, Attitude and Willingness to Take Care for HIV/AIDS Patients in Bhutan

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to describe nursesu knowledge, attitude and willingness to take care for HIV/AIDS patients in Bhutan. A descriptive survey design was used for the study. A Stratified Random Sampling with proportional allocation was conducted to draw the required sample size of 197 nurses from sixteen hospitals in Bhutan. The instrument developed was sent to five experts to assess for content validity and pilot study was conducted in Bhutan prior to data collection to assess for reliability. The data was collected from 15 October to 15 December 2007. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze the data. The over all mean score for knowledge was 24.66 (out of 30); 80.59 (out of 105) for attitude, and 44.85 (out of 50) for willingness. However, nurses had deficit on few aspects of risk factors, pathophysiology and management of HIV/AIDS. Spearmanus correlation showed that duration of HIV/AIDS training had significant positive correlation with knowledge (r s = 0.161, p < 0.05) and with attitude (r s = 0.145, p < 0.05). Knowledge had significant positive correlation with attitude (r s = 0.255, p < 0.01), and attitude had significant positive correlation with willingness (r s = 0.317, p < 0.01). Nurses showed negative attitude on few aspects like blaming the HIV/AIDS people for contracting the disease, as 33.5% of the nurses strongly agreed and 34% of the nurses agreed that uHIV/AIDS patients should blame themselves for getting HIV infectionu. Nurses had deficit on few aspects of risk factors, pathophysiology and management of HIV/AIDS, as only 34.5% of the nurses could answer correctly to the false statement that the risk of HIV infection from needle stick injury is very high. Only about 53.8% of the nurses answered correctly to the false statement that the HIV/AIDS is highly contagious. Therefore, nurses need to be updated on these areas which could boost their morale, and become confident in executing nursing care to HIV/AIDS patients. * Student, Master of Nursing Science (International Program), Faculty of Nursing, Khon Kaen University **Associate Professor, Faculty of Nursing, Khon Kaen University 54 «“√ “√«‘®—¬ i¢. (∫».) 8 (3) : °.§. °.¬. 2551