Health Care Professionals' Knowledge about AIDS, Prejudice and Attitudes towards AIDS

Abstract

In this study the authors examined knowledge of and attitudes to AIDS in a group of health care pofessionals. The results indicated high levels of knowledge about the disease. These results are regarded as positive findings, since their AIDS awareness showed the subjects were well informed and had formulated this knowledge from a relatively objective rather than judgemental/moralistic point of view. Three categories of attitudes were studied, that is, attitudes towards AIDS per se, attitudes towards homosexuality, and attitudes towards the sexuality of blacks. Attitudes towards AIDS per se varied considerably despite the relatively high levels of knowledge about the disease. Attitudes towards homosexuality had a substantial negative relationship with attitudes towards AIDS, a finding common to other studies. Attitudes towards AIDS were also related to attitudes towards the sexuality of blacks. It is concluded that attitudes towards AIDS in the group studied were substantially determined by historically grounded attitudes concerning the sexuality of marginalized groups. The implications of these findings as an additional component in combatting AIDS are discussed.