Administering Medical Procedures to Patients Living With AIDS: How Comfortable Are Physicians?

Attitude of health care workers to patients and colleagues infected with human immunodeficiency virus

Discrimination against persons living with HIV/AIDS in hospital settings has been documented. This study examined the attitude of health care workers (HCWs) to nurses, doctors and patients infected with HIV. A total of 345 respondents selected by multistage sampling techniques were surveyed, using a semi-structured questionnaire, which explored respondents' attitude to HIV-infected patients and colleagues with HIV/AIDS. HCWs were unwilling to accept that medical procedures be carried out on them by HIV-infected doctors and nurses, with almost 80% refusing surgery or assistance at surgery on them by an HIV-infected doctor or nurse. They were also significantly more unwilling to accept that medical procedures be carried out on them by an infected colleague, compared with their carrying out the same procedure on an HIV-infected patient. Thus, HCWs seemed to believe that the risk of contracting HIV was higher if an infected HCW were to perform medical procedures on them, and fear of contracting HIV seemed to be the driving force for their negative attitudes. Education on occupational risks of HIV, provision of a safe working environment with enforcement of universal precautions, as well as provision of post-exposure prophylaxis are suggested as ways to enable HCWs to change their attitudes.

Knowledge, attitude and willingness of Nigerian physiotherapists to provide care for patients living with Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Adequate knowledge, positive attitude, and willingness to provide services are important factors in rendering competent and compassionate care to patients living with Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Inadequate knowledge and poor attitude could exclude the application of the principles of logic and scientific methods to the practice of physiotherapy, and could result in fragmented care, with a potentially negative impact on treatment outcome and patient satisfaction. The purpose of this study was (1) to investigate the Nigerian physiotherapists' global knowledge, attitude and willingness to provide care for patients living with AIDS (PLWA), and to (2) determine the relationship between socio-demographic variables and previous encounter with PLWA, and physiotherapists' knowledge, attitude and willingness to care for AIDS survivors.

METHODS

Using a 90-item two-part questionnaire that elicited sociodemographic and previous AIDS encounter information, and also assessed knowledge, attitude and willingness to provide care to PLWA, physiotherapists (N = 131) practicing in Nigeria were surveyed.

RESULTS

Overall, the physiotherapists showed unsatisfactory knowledge about AIDS, harbored negative attitude towards PLWA, and some were unwilling to provide care for PLWA. Previous experience caring for PLWA influenced their attitude, and modest but positive relationships were found between knowledge and attitude and between attitude and willingness.

CONCLUSION

The study underscores the need to address Nigerian physiotherapists' working knowledge deficits and negative attitudes to PLWA. A comprehensive AIDS education that would assist clinicians in exploring their attitude, stereotype and bias against PLWA is warranted.