HIV AND AIDS AWARENESS - AN EVALUATION OF A SHORT TRAINING-PROGRAM FOR MIDWIVES

In response to a Department of Health, England, circular encouraging p olicies of named voluntary antenatal HIV antibody testing, one West Mi dlands health authority in England introduced a policy of raising the issue preactively at the first antenatal attendance, In order to facil itate this policy a short staff education programme was provided for m idwives. This paper reports on part of a study which aimed to evaluate the impact of the HIV awareness training programme, A sample of midwi ves (n = 65) was randomly selected for inclusion in the study. Thirty- three had attended training and 32 had not, Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire exploring knowledge of aetiology of HIV/AIDS, knowledge of transmission, knowledge of obstetric and paedia tric HIV, attitudes to HIV, issues related to antenatal HIV antibody t esting and opinions about the HIV awareness training programme. Result s indicated no significant difference in levels of knowledge or in att itude between those who had attended the training programme and those who had not. Similarly, no significant difference was found in terms o f how midwives would react to women requesting HIV antibody testing. M any of the results contradict the current literature and as a conclusi on it is suggested that there is a need to review HIV-related training for midwives.