NURSES ANXIETIES ABOUT BIOHAZARDS AS A FUNCTION OF CONTEXT AND KNOWLEDGE

Final-year nursing students (N = 96) described their anxieties about b iohazards, not only in relation to the occupational context of a hospi tal ward, but also in relation to their general life context. These co ntexts were reported to vary in the extent to which they permitted con trol over exposure to the two particular biohazards chosen for study: human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis B virus (HBV). The da ta showed that nurses' anxiety about contracting HIV infection varied significantly across the two contexts, while anxiety about contracting HBV infection did not. In the general life context, anxiety about HIV was greater than anxiety about HBV for all subjects. This difference was significantly greater for those with incorrect knowledge about obj ective HIV seroconversion rates than for those with correct knowledge.