CONOCIMIENTO DE LOS ESTUDIANTES DE ENFERMERIA SOBRE VIH/SIDA

Amongst the health care professional, nurses and nursing students are an important component of the health care delivery system, due to frequent and prolonged contact with patients during their daily practice. With the purpose to determine the knowledge that nursing students have about HIV/AIDS, a descriptive investigation was conducted. The sample was represented by 50 students to whom a questionnaire with 20 questions about HIV/AIDS and mode of transmission was applied. The mean age of the participants was 21.30±1.31 and 98.0% were female. Four percent (4.0%) reported a “good” knowledge, 40.0% “fair”, and 56.0% “deficient” knowledge, respectively in relation to the diseases. Nine eight (98,0%) answered correctly that “ HIV/AIDS can be transmitted by sexual relations without protection”, 84.0% wrongly answer “ Lymphocytes T cells are the same as CD4 counts”, the same percentage was incorrectly answered with regard to the mode of transmission by corporal fluids. To the item “a woman can contaminate her baby trough lactation”, 26.0% answered incorrectly. Conclusions: In general the students have a “fair” knowledge. It is necessary to implement educational strategies to improve the knowledge about the disease, its consequences and preventive measures in order to protect this group at risk, which also have the responsibility to transmit information to their patients.