HIV/AIDS awareness among hospital employees

Infection with HIV/AIDS are urgent medical problems worldwide with broad social, cultural, economical, political, ethical and legal implications.[1] Prevention indisputably is the most important objective. In the absence of a vaccine - or an effective chemotherapeutic agent, only weapon available for combating this dreadful infection is prevention by community awareness and health education.[2]

Health personnel have the dual responsibility of providing care and counseling to people with HIV/AIDS and educate individuals and community about the facts related to HIV/AIDS.

They must take appropriate precautions to prevent the spread of the infection in other patients and among themselves; act as a role model for their community by providing compassionate and respectful care; and educate individuals and groups about HIV/AIDS.[2]

Keeping this in mind the present study was carried out among class III and Class IV workers of Govt. Medical College & Hospital, Nagpur to assess their knowledge and attitude towards HIV/AIDS. These people form an important contact point with the masses and they are the ones who can best educate individuals and groups about the facts related to HIV/AIDS. Their ignorance can act as an impediment in the care of AIDS patients which may pose a great problem in future. Also, these are the people who can build the right platform wherein doctors and experts on HIV can provide further knowledge.

Material and methods

Present study is a cross sectional study carried out among Class III and Class IV employees working in Govt. Medical College and Hospital, Nagpur, to assess their knowledge and attitude towards HIV/AIDS. Total sample size was 250 of which 176(70.4%) were Class III and 74 (29.6%) were Class IV employees. The individuals were interviewed personally using a predesigned questionnaire in Marathi. The questionnaire comprised of questions on different aspects of AIDS like etiology, modes of transmission, preventive measures etc. According to the number of correct answers given a scoring system was developed and score obtained by each study subject were calculated.

Observations

Source of Information: Of the 250 study subject 18(7.2%) had never heard/read about AIDS and hence were excluded from further analysis leaving us with a total of 232. The main source of information was television in 78%, followed by newspapers in 54.3% and doctors in 43.5%. Other sources of information were radio, friends and others in 38.8%, 20.7% and 17.2% of study subject respectively.

Knowledge of etiological agent: 57.3% of the study subjects knew about the viral etiology of AIDS, 15.6% answered that it is caused by a germ while 11.5% said that the causative agent is a bacteria. Contaminated food, water and air were implicated by 5.2%, 4.9% and 3.8% of study subjects respectively, 1.7% study subjects did not know about the etiological agent.