A caring-based AIDS educational model for pre-adolescents: global health human caring perspective

With the prolific messages shown to children today through the media and other sources about acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), what sexual questions are on the minds of the fifth and sixth grade students as a result of this exposure? What is the role and responsibility of nurses with regard to this problem? This descriptive study focused on fifth and sixth graders' questions about AIDS and provides some directions for theory-based nursing interventions related to AIDS and children. This paper proposed a theory-based model of caring as a teaching intervention programme about AIDS for pre-adolescents. The model resulted from a sex education programme for fifth and sixth graders in an international school setting in Japan. The nature of the students' questions about AIDS revealed transcultural concerns which suggested that a model of human caring was needed to develop a systematic approach to AIDS education for pre-adolescents. The model proposed has global implications for nurses and other health professionals in schools and primary health-care settings in various parts of the world.