The experiences of student nurses regarding the negotiation of condom use at a Nursing College in the Eastern Cape Province

The purpose of the study was to explore and describe the experiences of student nurses regarding negotiation of condom use at Lilitha College of Nursing, East London Campus. Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection is still one of the severe global public health problems and a considerable number of people are living with HIV and millions of these people die of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). It has been found that women have difficulty in negotiating condom use. The study that was conducted in Tanzania revealed that when women lack selfconfidence to negotiate condom use with their sexual companions, they may be exposed to unprotected sex, thus being at danger of contracting STIs as well as HIV/AIDS and therefore being more susceptible to adverse sexual and reproductive health results (Exavery, Kanté, Jackson, Noronha, Sikustahili, Tani, Mushi, Baynes, Ramsey, Hingora and Phillips, 2012:9). A qualitative, descriptive, explorative, contextual design was used to describe the experiences of student nurses regarding negotiation of condom use and a purposive sampling method was used to select fourth year students. Eleven students participated in the study. Data was collected by means of individual face-to-face interviews with fourth year students. The interviews continued until data saturation was reached. Data analysis was done using Tesch‟s approach to open coding in qualitative research. Themes, categories and sub-categories emerged from the data analysis and were fully discussed. The results of the study indicated that students experienced difficulties in negotiation of condom use, although some participants felt that they were comfortable to negotiate. Health education and awareness campaigns were recommended as fundamental tools that could be used as strategies to enhance successful negotiation of condom use