Presently, there are approximately 1.2 million individuals in the United States who are living with HIV, and that number is expected to increase because individuals infected live longer. People infected with HIV must deal with several comorbidities complicated by HIV. This will require several healthcare visits. Majority of the nurses are not in a position to focus on HIV care. However, nurses are being called upon to educate the public about HIV. Nurses have not been involved actively in educating the public about HIV since HIV experts assumed the responsibility. Since the health sector is evolving, nurses are required to educate the public on HIV. This paper seeks to explain to why it is important as nurses to educate the public about HIV transmission, diagnosis of HIV, and opportunistic infections associated with HIV.
As a nurse, it is important to educate the public about HIV because it helps to increase knowledge and comprehension about the disease (World Health Organization, 2018). It is through teaching and interacting with the patient that a nurse can get more insight into HIV ( Chung & Rimal, 2015) . Since there are HIV experts who educate the public about HIV, nurses do not have much information about HIV, and by educating the public about the disease, nurses gain more awareness about it.
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As a nurse, educating the public about HIV helps get rid of stigmatization amongst health workers. Some health workers still have stigmatization attitude towards patients with HIV (Olans, Olans & DeMaria, 2015). By educating the public about HIV, a nurse will interact with those infected or affected by HIV, and it will help eradicate the stigmatization.
It is important for nurses to educate the public about HIV because it helps reduce the prevalence of HIV in the society (Suominen et al., 2015). Because nurses are in contact with several patients and their families who are part of the society, they are best suited to educate the public on how to reduce the prevalence of HIV.
References
Chung, A. H., & Rimal, R. N. (2015). Revisiting the importance of knowledge: from Namibia, a case for promoting knowledge by campaigns to reduce stigma. Health Education & Behavior , 42 (2), 249-256.
Olans, R. N., Olans, R. D., & DeMaria Jr, A. (2015). The critical role of the staff nurse in antimicrobial stewardship—unrecognized, but already there. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 62(1), 84-89.
Suominen, T., Laakkonen, L., Lioznov, D., Polukova, M., Nikolaenko, S., Lipiäinen, L., ... & Kylmä, J. (2015). Russian nursing students’ knowledge level and attitudes in the context of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)–a descriptive study. BMC nursing, 14(1), 1.
World Health Organization. (2018). Who guidance on the use of dolutegravir (). http://www.who.int/hiv/en/
World Health Organization. (2018). TB causes death in 1 in 3 HIV deaths. http://www.who.int/hiv/en/
