Turkish nursing students' attitudes about patients living with HIV/AIDS

The study was conducted to identify attitudes towards patients living with HIV/AIDS of nursing students in Turkey. The descriptive study was conducted in the Adana Health School of Çukurova University in Adana, Turkey. The study comprised 311 nursing students. The data were collected via AIDS Attitudes Scale (AAS). The data were evaluated using SPSS software, using percentage, analysis of variance, t test and Kruskal-Wallis test. Total AAS score of the students was found as 48.67 ± 13.77. The mean domain scores of AIDS Attitude Scale were 19.39 ± 5.66 for Contagion Subscale, 13.28 ± 4.41 for Negative Emotions Subscale and 16.00 ± 6.88 for Professional Resistance Subscale. It was determined in this study that negative attitudes exist towards people with HIV/AIDS among nursing students. These findings were interpreted to suggest that further AIDS education among nursing students is necessary. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media New York