Cent Eur J Public Health 2008, 16(3):134-137 | DOI: 10.21101/cejph.a3470

Professional Risk, Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice of Health Care Personnel in Serbia with Regard to HIV and AIDS

Biljana Kocić1, Branislav Petrović, Dragan Bogdanović1, Jovica Jovanović2, Dragana Nikić1, Maja Nikolić1
1 Institute of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Nią, Nią, Serbia
2 Institute of Occupational Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Nią, Nią, Serbia

The aim of our investigation was to assess HIV/AIDS-related professional risk, knowledge, attitude and practice of health care workers in Nią. A cross-sectional study of health personnel from Primary Health Centre, Clinical Medical Centre and Dental Clinic in Nią was performed. The data were collected by an anonymous questionnaire. Mantel-Haenszel χ2 testing and multiple logistic regression analysis were applied. Results show that 89% of health personnel perceived high professional risk of acquiring HIV infection. The risk perception of acquiring HIV infections was higher among those who were frequently exposed to patients' blood and other body fluids (OR=10.1 95% CI=3.1-32.5), and those who had treated HIV-positive patients (OR=3.0 95% CI=1.0-8.8). The majority of respondents had insufficient knowledge about the modes of HIV transmission. Nearly two thirds of health personnel agreed that every hospitalized patient should be tested for HIV, and more than four fifths of them agreed that their personal protection was more important than the confidentiality of patient's HIV/AIDS status. Twenty nine percent of health personnel use adequate protection during their daily work with patients. These findings indicated a need for urgent educational and training initiatives of HIV and AIDS for all categories of health care workers.

Keywords: health care workers, professional risk, HIV infection, attitude, knowledge

Received: December 18, 2007; Revised: April 18, 2008; Accepted: April 18, 2008; Published: September 1, 2008  Show citation

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Kocić B, Petrović B, Bogdanović D, Jovanović J, Nikić D, Nikolić M. Professional Risk, Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice of Health Care Personnel in Serbia with Regard to HIV and AIDS. Cent Eur J Public Health. 2008;16(3):134-137. doi: 10.21101/cejph.a3470. PubMed PMID: 18935780.
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