Safe sex and student nurses in rural Australia: nurses' knowledge and practices (Part 1)

This article is the first of a two-part series on a research study investigating student nurses' knowledge and attitudes to safe sex in a rural university in Australia. The article begins with a discussion of HIV/AIDS, particularly the current incidence and a discussion of the associated epidemiological data. Health care professionals responses to the disease and examples from relevant Australian literature are briefly explored. The authors then discuss the need for this current research study, reveal the associated ethical process, outline the instrument used and the sample population. The article concludes with a discussion of reliability and validity.