Senior nursing students respond to an HIV experiential-teaching method with an African-American female

This experimental study compared an HIV experiential-teaching method to the traditional lecture and discussion method to determine if one method was more likely to produce significant indications of senior nursing students' willingness and perceived preparedness to provide HIV-patient care to affected clients. The sample included 70 (N = 70) baccalaureate senior nursing students from one university. In this study, 35 (n = 35) students were randomized into either the experimental group or into the control lecture and discussion group (n = 351 Unlike the traditional lecture and discussion method, the experiential-teaching method entitled "To be Touched by AIDS" included an affective component with an African-American female who was an HIV-Positive intravenous drug user. Findings from this study indicated that the experiential-teaching method was efficacious in increasing willingness to provide HIV patient care to affected clients using a Wilcoxon (Z = -251 p< 0.05) test as compared to the traditional lecture and discussion method of teaching Further findings from this study also suggested that there was a weak inverse correlation found using a Spearman Rho. Nonetheless, there was a statistically significant relationship between perceived preparedness and willingness to provide care to affected HIV clients (r(s) = -0.26, p = 0.05) in the experiential-teaching group as compared to the traditional lecture and discussion group. It is plausible to assume that in light of these statistical findings, nurse educators need to incorporate components of HIV experiential-teaching methods in an effort to assist future nurses. These experiential-teaching methods, such as situational role-playing and patients recollections of lived experiences as HIV-Positive individuals would aid future nurses in providing optimal healthcare to all patients, but particularly to those who are HIV-Positive.