Attitudes of Rural Nurses Toward Homosexuals and Willingness to Care for AIDS Clients

Research on attitudes about Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) indicates that stigma and stereotyping of AIDS victims, homosexual or not presents a real problem in the delivery of quality, nurturant care. The purpose of this investigation was to see if a correlation existed between attitudes of rural nurses toward homosexuals and willingness to care for AIDS clients. A mail-survey aimed at registered nurses (N= 740) living in rural northwestern Kansas was employed. Sixty-four percent of the surveys (N = 471) returned were usable. Transcultural nursing and human care theory (Leininger, 1978) served as the theoretical framework for this investigation. Transcultural nursing is sensitive to the needs of diverse cultural populations within a society and asserts that knowledge or a given culture decreases potential bias and prejudice. The homosexual community can be viewed as a culture with its own set or beliefs and practices. A significant relationship(r=.41, p \u3c .0001) existed between the variables, attitudes toward homosexuals and willingness to care for AIDS clients. If assigned, 82% of the respondents said they would not refuse to care for an AIDS client, and most (76%) felt they had enough information to protect themselves against AIDS in the workplace. Only 15 percent said AIDS victims should be quarantined. Data obtained from this investigation could lend support in formulating transcultural nursing models of care which could be used to direct educational programs geared to altering potential bias, beliefs and attitudes of nurses toward populations at risk for AIDS