Attitude And Knowledge Of Midwives Towards Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Positive Patients

An infectious disease like HIV is continues to grow in developing countries and worldwide. It is a major global public health issue, which puts a heavy burden on health care needs. According to the World Health Organization global summary of the AIDS epidemic (2011) globally 30.4 million of people living with HIV out of them prevalence of adult is 30.7 million, prevalence of women is 16.7 million, whereas 30.7 million is the prevalence of children < 15 years of age. According to UNAIDS (2008) reportin the Asia-Pacific, Pakistan is the country with high prevalence people infected with HIV among 11 countries. Prevalence of HIV in Pakistan is approximately doubled from 11% in 2005 to 21% in 2008. According to Ilyas et al. (2011) in Pakistan, in young people the conducive behaviours to the spread of HIV infection are curiosity of sex, drugs, negative peer pressure, and economic frustration. Also, Pakistan was initially considered as the low prevalence country. However, Pakistan is now facing HIV epidemic among high risk populations like injecting drug users (IDUs).

Nurses and Midwives are at forefront in spending con­siderable time taking care of the HIV positive patients who are admitted to hospitals. Midwives are considered to play a pivotal role whose task is to promote sexual and reproductive health and to prevent reproductive illnesses. Hence, it is important to explore the knowledge of midwives about HIV and their attitudes and willingness to take care of them in order to improve the quality of care.