Abstrack:
In controling the epidemic of HIV and AIDS as well as to mitigate its social impact, the government of Indonesia has initiated actions to improve knowledge, attitude, and practice towards HIV and AIDS in the society. As nutrition plays an important role in treating patients with HIV and AIDS, the KAP of nutrition care providers is very critical. The objective of this study is to identify knowledge, attitude, and practice of nutrition care providers towards HIV and AIDS. This study employed a cross-sectional descriptive design done in five HIV referral hospitals in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, between September and December 2012. Data was compared between dietitians and nutrition attendants by using Mann-Whitney test. This study shows that 65.71% of dietitians and 31.82% of nutrition attendants who had adequate knowledge of HIV and AIDS. There were 65.71% of dietitians and 27.27% of nutrition attendants who had positive attitude towards HIV and AIDS, whereas good practice was shown by 74.29% of dietitians and 54.55% of nutrition attendants. There were statistical significant different in knowledge and attitude between dietitians and nutrition attendants (p<0.05); however there was no difference in practice towards HIV and AIDS between them. The conclusion is KAP towards HIV and AIDS are relatively low among nutrition care providers in hospitals, although dietitians have significantly better knowledge and attitude compared to nutrition attendants. Regarding this, specific trainings in HIV as well as HIV social campaign need to be conducted among nutrition care providers.
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