Attitudes of pediatric nurses facing HIV risk

The purpose of this study was to examine health related attitudes, including willingness to provide care, of health care professionals toward HIV-infected patients. To control for attitudes toward people who may have engaged in high risk behaviors for HIV infection, such as intravenous drug use or homosexual behavior, attitudes of pediatric nurses were studied since children with HIV almost never acquire the infection through these behaviors. The research population consisted of 517 pediatric nurses (46% response rate) from twenty states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The major findings were that those pediatric nurses with more experience caring for HIV-infected patients were more willing to care for these patients, and respondents reported more favorable attitudes after caring for people infected with HIV. Very few nurses would refuse to care for these children, although most acknowledged moderate fear of acquiring HIV from their patients. The level of experience caring for people with HIV was uncorrelated with reported likelihood of incidents of occupational HIV exposure risk. Greater occupational exposure risk was associated with less positive attitudes and less willingness to provide care. Implications of this study include that attitudes, including willingness to provide care, are more favorable with less suspected risk of infection and after more experience with such patients. In this study, where the sample of clients was adjusted to remove other biases, health caregivers were generally positive toward caring for HIV-infected patients.