A guide to the full range of specific nursing tasks and skills needed to care for the growing number of people with HIV or AIDS and to help both individuals and communities follow practices that protect them from infection. Background information is provided in the opening sections, which describe the appropriate nursing interventions at each stage in the clinical spectrum of HIV infection, and outline important facts about the disease and its modes of transmission. Section three, on prevention, uses drawings, lists and tables to communicate essential messages for health education and counselling. Other sections provide advice on group education, individual counselling, programmes and policies for screening and testing, and the many special issues that surround the care and counselling of pregnant women, whether infected with HIV or at risk. The most extensive section provides a guide to nursing care in symptomatic HIV infection at each stage in the progression towards AIDS. Information ranges from the signs and symptoms of AIDS-related complex to a model plan for nursing care, from essential advice for the care of patients at home to a ten-page tabular presentation of commonly occurring problems and the appropriate nursing interventions. The remaining sections cover care of the dying patient, the organization of community-wide health education programmes, and the strict disinfection and other precautions that must be followed in order to prevent the spread of infection within any health care setting.

DC.WPRO

eng.

WHODOC

WHO monograph

4