The Effect of the Infectious Disease Nursing Course on Turkish Students' Knowledge and Attitudes Towards AIDS: A Quasi-Experimental Study

There is no available treatment or vaccine for HIV/AIDS, and health education has, therefore, become a top priority in the prevention of disease. It is of great importance to have sufficient information about HIV/AIDS and how to control infection. This study was conducted to determine the effect of the Infectious Disease Nursing course on nursing students' knowledge and attitudes towards AIDS. Materials and Methods. This quasi-experimental study was carried out between February 12 - May 28, 2019 and included 50 nursing students who were taking the Infectious Disease Nursing course for the first time and attended the pre-test and post-test. The data were collected using a Personal Information Form and the AIDS Knowledge and Attitude Scale. Descriptive statistics, the paired sample t-test and Pearson correlation analysis were used in the evaluation of the data. Results. Among the students who participated in the study, 94.0% of students were at the age of 18-21 years; 80.0% of students were females; 54.0% of students stated that they had adequate knowledge of AIDS; 78.0% of students stated that they did not want to provide care to individuals with HIV/AIDS. There was found a significant strong positive correlation between the mean pre- and post-education scores for the AIDS Knowledge and Attitude Scale (p<0.05, r=0.34; p<0.01, r=0.72). There was a significant, weak negative correlation between the mean post-education AIDS total Attitude mean score and the status of having contact with a patient with HIV/AIDS and wanting to provide care for a patient with HIV/AIDS (p < 0.05, r=-0.31), and a significant weak positive correlation between the status of wanting to provide care for a patient with HIV/AIDS and seeing people with HIV/AIDS as a threat (p < 0.01; r=-0.50). Conclusions. All the students benefited from the information on AIDS and became informed due to attending the Infectious Diseases Nursing course and their attitudes towards AIDS improved.