Nursing Students' Knowlegde about HIV/AIDS: An International Comparison between Finland, Estonia and Lithuania

Aim This paper reports an exploration of Finnish, Estonian and Lithuanian nursing students' knowledge of HIV/AIDS. Background Preparing nursing students to care for persons with HIV/AIDS safely and effectively is a complex process. One of the first steps is to assess their knowledge of HIV/AIDS. Methods The data were collected by means of a questionnaire containing 17 demographic and other background items and 33 questions to measure nursing students' knowledge of HIV/AIDS. The data were collected in 2005 to 2006. A total of 569 questionnaires were distributed inFinland (N=213), Estonia (N=146) and Lithuania (N=210). Findings The nursing students demonstrated an average level of knowledge about HIV/AIDS. The mean number of correct answers for all three datasets was 21.74 out of 33 (minimum 9, maximum 31, MD 22.00, SD 3.83). Knowledge levels differed between the three countries (p=