ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Jameel Hijazeen1 , Munir Abu-Helalah2, Ehab Zayadeen3, Ali Al-Far4, Moamar Al-Jefout5 and Fadi Al Nimri3
1Resident of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, LWL-Hospital Hemer, Hemer, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
2Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Mutah University, Karak, Jordan.
3General Physicians, Jordan.
4Anesthesiology Resident, Jordan University Hospital, Amman, Jordan.
5Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, Mutah University, Karak, Jordan.
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2015;9(Spl. Edn. 1):591-598
© The Author(s). 2015
Received: 23/02/2015 | Accepted: 08/04/2015 | Published: 31/05/2015
Abstract

Jordan has a low prevalence of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). However, HIV/AIDS is an important global public health issue and medical students in Jordan need to be well-informed about it. To assess Mutah Medical School students’ knowledge about HIV/AIDS and to explore their attitudes toward people living with HIV (PLWH). A cross-sectional study conducted in 2013 among clinical years students using a self-administered questionnaire. A total of 209 students filled the questionnaire. Slightly more than half of the students reported having received adequate or more than adequate teaching on sterilization procedures (53%) and barriers (55%), while only 43% reported similar teaching received of cross-infection precautions. The students showed a good overall knowledge about HIV/AIDS and the transmission routes of HIV. However, some misconceptions existed such as thinking that HIV could be transmitted by mosquitos (30%) and flies (10%). Negative attitudes were displayed toward patients with HIV/AIDS with 89% agreeing that AIDS makes their job a high-risk occupation and 60% agreeing that given a choice, they would prefer not to work with AIDS patients.  Although there was a good overall knowledge of the students about HIV/AIDS, negative attitudes were prevalent towards PLWH.

Keywords

HIV/AIDS, Jordan, medical students, attitudes, stigma

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© The Author(s) 2015. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.