Perceptions and attitudes of first year student nurses towards voluntary HIV counselling and testing at the Western Cape College of Nursing

Abstract

Voluntary HIV counselling and testing (VCT) programmese have been regarded as an important strategy in the management of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This is in light of having statistics showing only one in five South Africans who know about voluntary counselling and testing also went for testing.The aim of this study was to get a better understanding of the barriers whoch prevented student nurses from participating in voluntary HIV counselling and testing, explore their knowledge of the VCT process, explore factors which influence their decision to test or not to test and their perception of the VCT programme in their college.