Prevention Strategies for HIV/AIDS in Vulnerable Populations

This article discusses the various prevention strategies used by nurses to reduce or eliminate HIV/AIDS infection in at-risk populations. It explores the role of communication, education, voluntary counseling and testing, and empowering vulnerable groups in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. The article emphasizes the importance of these strategies in reaching and educating vulnerable populations.

Running Head: COMMUNITY NURSING
Community Nursing
Name
Institution

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Community Nursing
Despite the recent government along with the civil society endeavours, which has
noticeably enhanced HIV/AIDS-related morbidity and mortality, the increasing persons infected
with HIV/AIDS remains a primary concern for nurses around the world. Yet, after more than two
decades since the endemic started, those populations most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS have not yet
been successfully reached by prevention interventions. Nursing entails working with
communities, as well as populations as equivalent partners plus stressing on principal prevention,
as well as health promotion around the world. Particularly, the roles of nursing entail
partnerships with communities along the populations to deal with health along with social
conditions plus problems such as HIV/AIDS (Leblanc, Burnet, D’Almeida, Lert, Simon &
Crémieux, 2015). Public health endeavours to lower an increase of HIV/AIDS have experienced
a primary move from distinct models for prevention along with the treatment to the present
emphasize on blend prevention approaches that concurrently deal with biomedical, behavioural,
as well as societal levels. Nursing care, especially from the registered nurses (RNs) has been
instrumental in reducing cases of infection to vulnerable populations in the community. Nurses
have continued to play a momentous function in preventing the spread of HIV among the
populations at risk for many decades. Since the beginning of the HIV epidemic, nurses have been
in the front position of the response team to assist people to prevent this fatal infection (Gurry,
2015).
During the 21st-century, nurses perform in varied settings that include, but not restricted
to, community nursing centres, school health programs; neighbourhood centres; home health
organizations; and occupational health programs in their efforts to prevent HIV/AIDS infection

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on at-risk populations (Kurth, Celum, Baeten, Vermund & Wasserheit, 2011). Thus, high-risk,
vulnerable populations to HIV infections include frail elderly, destitute persons, inactive persons,
smokers; teenage mothers among other risk populations are targeted by nurses in an endeavour to
decrease new infections of HIV/AIDS. The paper will discuss the different primary prevention
strategies employed by nurses to reduce or eliminate HIV/AIDS infection in at-risk populations.
HIV/AIDS Prevention Strategies used by Nurses
Communication
Communication has been the pillar of prevention of HIV/AIDS among the population at
risk for many decades now used by nursing professionals. The latest paradigm of integration of
prevention approaches that integrates behavioural, biomedical, as well as structural interventions
provides novel prospects for utilizing health communication strategies across the whole variety
of care. These interventions depend mainly on interpersonal communication, particularly person
plus group counselling, both in and further than clinical environments. Nurses are leading in the
promotion of prevention strategies to risk populations to prevent new infections of HIV/AIDS
(Crock, 2017). Some of the nursing roles played by communication entail providing relevant
health information, motivation to help inspire behaviours, which enhance health outcomes, as
well as facilitation of social linkages and helpful social settings for the preferred health
behaviours. In many instances, nurses will promote communication towards the prevention of
HIV/AIDS among vulnerable populations by creating health-seeking behaviour. Hence, nurses
use communication as a tool to motivate the vulnerable population to obstinate from behaviours,
like unsafe sex among the youth and teenagers to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. In addition,

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nurses employ communication approach through several campaigns like social media and other
forums to motivate the people at risk to get tested and get the results so that they may know their
current status. This is critical because they will allow the nurses to communicate and provide the
necessary support to ensure that the risk populations get the necessary care they need to continue
with their current status (Boily, Masse, & Alsallaq, 2012).
In addition, nurses have fundamentally prevented HIV/AIDS among vulnerable
populations through embracing interpersonal communication. Many studies underscore the
significance of interpersonal communication in connection to care via counselling, both in
medical environments and at the homes of the persons at risk of the disease. Many nurses have
continued to craft messages through different communication channels that target to reduce
HIV/AIDS infection. These messages have been effective in ensuring that the populations at risk
get the right information on how to change their risky behaviours that may make the population
become infected with HIV (Kippax & Stephenson, 2012). As in strategies on connection to care,
communication plays a primary role in adherence outcomes via interpersonal communication by
nurse counsellors. The nurse counsellors will usually target the vulnerable populations to new
infections of HIV/AIDS and provide effective messages through counselling in diverse
environments resulting in better management of the endemic. Additionally, nurses have been
using mobile communication technologies in preventing HIV/AIDS that provide a promising
new strategy for promoting the management of HIV/AIDS (Kurth, McClelland, Wanje, 2012).
For example, nurses use mobile telephone messages and social media that have motivational
messages that have been seen to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS. Specifically, nurses have been
using social media to target the youth to communicate on the dangers of HIV/AIDS and the

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importance of embracing safe behaviours that will prevent HIV/AIDS infection. Hence,
communication has gone a long way in preventing HIV/AIDS on vulnerable populations by
providing pertinent information and other methods that the population can use to prevent the
disease (Uzma, Emmanuel, Ather n& Zaman, 2011).
Education
Nurses have used education programs for many decades to prevent HIV infection on
populations at risk and this has been an effective intervention. Nurses will be able to offer peer
education that will ensure that vulnerable populations are educated on the potential risks of some
behaviours that will lead to HIV/AIDS infection. Nurses usually educate vulnerable groups on
how to ascertain their HIV/AIDS status by being screened and regarding the significance of
taking part in safe sex, which comprises asceticism in addition to condom use. This will enable
vulnerable groups to make decisions that will enable to prevent being infected with HIV/AIDS
(Gurry, 2015).
Nurses as educators to these vulnerable groups are generally accepted by their
communities and are well-positioned to provide basic correct information concerning the disease
employing the face-to-face strategy. This is crucial since it increases awareness regarding the
endemic and its effects on their lives. Nurses have the role of speaking regarding the situation the
vulnerable group live and work in, providing meaning to information along with knowledge
specific to the group, sub-group or individual (Rosen & Fox, 2011). This educational approach
used by nurses has been successful because it favours the actual change of behaviours, attitudes,
as well as beliefs. Education that targets sex works, for example, has been designed by nurses
through community meetings that promote discussions regarding work, safety and life matters

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that affect members of the group, such as police violence. These educational programs will target
different community where meetings will actually provide education to the members promoting
awareness regarding the importance of getting tested and screened of HIV. In addition, the
educational programs and nurse involvement are crucial that allow the linkage of social-survival
matters along with the vulnerability to HIV/AIDS infection. Nurses have been keen to ensure
that they provide reliable information through education on dangers of engaging in risky
activities like unsafe sex that can promote the spread of HIV/AIDS. Educational programs
integrated with effective communication are effective in HIV/AIDS prevention and nurses to
have been able to succeed through this strategy (Storey & Ahanda, 2014).
Voluntary Counselling and Testing
Voluntary counselling besides testing is a primary element of both HIV/AIDS care in
addition to prevention that has been used by nurses for many years. The power of voluntary
counselling plus testing has been significantly amplified among the vulnerable populations to
HIV/AIDS, majorly via the extension of services providing rapid testing by the primary nurse or
primary care counsellors. The rapid tests are founded on the detection of HIV/AIDS antibodies,
so a negative outcome does not rule out early prime HIV/AIDS infection. The primary nurses
have targeted their counselling and testing programs to populations at risk, like youth, young
mothers and drug abusers whom they believe that they need to be counselled and tested to
prevent HIV/AIDS infection (Massey, 2014). The nurses normally stress the significance of
“repeated tests” that are done routinely to the populations at risk and ensure that they encourage
them to get tested and counselled to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS endemic. The counselling
process targets behaviours of the population at risk by providing the necessary counselling to

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make them aware of the risk behaviours (Konate, Traore & Ouedraogo, 2011). This has been
crucial in allowing nurses to identify risky behaviours among the vulnerable individuals and
ensure that they encourage the population to be tested to ensure that they practice safe
behaviours that will not predispose them to HIV disease. Studies have demonstrated that
individuals counselled and tested usually report lower risky behaviours that will predispose them
to HIV. Therefore, primary nurses have played a fundamental role in ensuring that they develop
effective counselling and testing programs that normally targets the vulnerable populations
(Coates, Kulich & Celentano, 2014).
Additionally, primary care support HIV preventing through offering well-targeted HIV
testing where vulnerable populations may be tested and necessary assistance offered. When an
HIV positive patient gets a diagnosis, they have the chance to begin an HIV/AIDS treatment plan
as early as possible. This early treatment is effective since it benefits the patient and lowers the
risk of passing the disease on to other persons. This means that will be responsible for providing
testing to the persons vulnerable to the disease and they will offer the necessary counselling
based on the results of the tests and screening (Vermund & Hayes, 2013).
Empowering Vulnerable Groups
Nurses have been trained to empower different clients in different settings in an effort to
reduce the impacts of diseases. This is not an exception when it comes to HIV/AIDS, where
nurses believe that empowering vulnerable groups to HIV/AIDS is imperative to ensuring that
the disease spreads the least in the community. Nurses have helped vulnerable groups from
HIV/AIDS by empowering them to adapt behaviours that will not expose them to the disease.
Individuals living with amplified vulnerability to HIV infection are as varied as the general

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population. For instance, male and female sex workers, IDU, as well as MSN are normally the
victims of strong social stigma, independent of HIV status that increases their vulnerability.
Therefore, nurses have developed programs that target these vulnerable groups by ensuring that
these people are empowered (Evans & Dukes, 2018). The nurses target those groups that have
been stigmatized by the society that predisposes them to HIV where it empowers them by
creating social networks that will allow them to share their problems more easily. Through these
social networks, nurses will be able to provide the support necessary to make take charge of their
lives by getting screened and tested of HIV/AIDS. In addition, the nurses will empower these
vulnerable groups to form social partnerships that will allow them to develop a better
understanding of their status. Nurses have ensured that advocacy programs are effective through
the use of programs that will remove fears on individuals vulnerable to HIV towards some
government programs such as VCT testing (Rosen & Fox, 2011).
Conclusions
Nurses play a key role in the prevention of HIV/AIDS among the vulnerable persons in
the community. HIV/AIDS endemic has been a serious concern among nurses in modern times
because of the devastating effects on vulnerable populations. Nurses believe that developing
effective intervention programs like education, empowerment, voluntary counselling and testing,
and health communication are key to preventing HIV/AIDS. Many vulnerable populations have
beared the burden of HIV/AIDS that can be prevented by the above strategies that nurses must
adopt to reduce cases of the disease and its damaging effects on the population (Hattori &
DeRose, 2008). Therefore, as global support for zero bias, zero fresh HIV/AIDS infections, as
well as zero related mortality via nursing interventions for HIV/AIDS intervention, support and

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care are critical for helping the vulnerable persons in the community. Nurses should further
develop HIV/AIDS prevention programs that take into consideration locally held beliefs along
with practices plus family and communal context of the vulnerable groups (Limbu, 2009).
Finally, nurses must ensure that they provide accurate information that will empower the
vulnerable groups to make important decisions regarding their lives and embrace behaviours that
will reduce HIV infection.

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