Evaluating Nurses' Role in Preventing HIV/AIDS Spread

This essay examines the critical role of nurses in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS, particularly among at-risk populations such as women and children. It delves into the relationship between nursing practice and the social determinants of health, as well as primary health care approaches. The paper explores the public health mandates of nurses, their responsibilities in risk management for patients and their close contacts, and the application of participative intervention methods in health promotion. Nurses are positioned as essential figures in HIV/AIDS prevention, providing counseling, education, and direct care across the spectrum of the disease, from initial diagnosis to end-of-life support. The essay emphasizes the importance of nurses in addressing health inequalities, advocating for policy changes, and implementing community-based strategies to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic, highlighting the impact of their work in both developed and developing countries. The role of nurses in advocating for ARV drugs and the role of community health nurses in data analysis and policy formulation are also discussed.

RUNNING HEAD: NURSING AND HIV/AIDS
1
The Role of Nurses in Preventing the Spread of HIV/AIDS among Risk Populations
Name of Student
Name of Institution

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The Role of Nurses in Preventing the Spread of HIV/AIDS among Risk Populations
HIV/AIDS is a global health challenge that has affected both the public and nursing
professionals since HIV was detected. Since the beginning of the pandemic, (Bórquez, 2017)
connotes that nurses have been at the forefront in responding to victims to help them manage the
fatal disease. Nurses are often involved in every stage of the trajectory from counseling newly
diagnosed patients to the last breath at the point of death of the infected patients. The central
theme of this paper is evaluating the roles of nurses in the prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS
among the risk population such as women and children. In so doing; the paper shall consider the
relationship between nursing and the Social Determinants of Health and Primary Health Care;
the public health mandates of the nurses; risk management of the patients and those close to
them, and the participative intervention methods of health promotion (Demarco, 2019).
HIV/AIDS pandemic is proven to constitute a health problem of exceptional proportion
for the global public health. Towards the end of the 20th century, it is still as though it is a new
plaque, an aspect that shows the control and prevention from spreading to the vulnerable
population is still an havoc to the health industry. According to (Martinez, 2017), nurses and
other health professionals have a vital role to play, an aspect that requires specific interventions
that are relevant to their qualifications as the skills are necessary at the primary, tertiary, or
secondary levels of the disease prevention. At the primary stage, the education towards
prevention and social behavior takes the center stage. At the secondary level after a patient has
acquired the disease, nurses become vital in teaching healthy behaviors necessary for the patients
to live with the disease. Therefore, counseling and provision of health information becomes
essential for those at risk such as sexual partners and children. At the tertiary level, nursing
interventions become essential to promote the quality of the individual life while helping the

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patients to deal with anger, sadness, discouragements, fears, and stigma that follows (Guise,
Albers & Strathdee, 2016). Therefore, the role played by nurses is often not recognized even
though they are always at the center of the response to any public health crisis. For instance, in
the first professional to die in the most recent outbreak of Ebola in Congo was a nurse. At the
beginning of diagnosis for HIV/AIDS, nurses are expected to provide the bulk of care for the risk
population as well as the infected patients. Apart from the counseling of the diagnosed patients,
nurses provide a point of care HIV tests and a ton other indispensable services that they offer to
the communities in which they work.
The relationship between Nursing and Social Determinants of Health and Primary Health Care
As aforementioned, nursing exists at the epicenter of the medical profession and the
prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS is heavily dependent on the knowledge that nurses pass to
the societies within which they are. However, to understand the relationship between the
profession of Nursing and the social determinants of health and public health care, one must
understand what the two paradigms entail. Social Determinants of Health are the societal factors
such as wealth and education that are responsible for healthcare inequalities. They are all the
structural, non-medical factors that determine the wellbeing of a person. Generally, people who
are financially better off, for instance, are more likely to afford better healthcare, which might be
problematic to those who are financially incapable of attaining healthcare. SDH influence the
incidence and spread of HIV/AIDS in that the pandemic is more prevalent in developing
countries than it is in developed countries (Guise, Albers & Strathdee, 2016).
Primary Health Care is yet another paradigm concerned with healthcare inequality and
the ultimate spread of HIV/AIDS among risk populations. Primary Health Care adopted an

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approach that looks at health as more than just the absence of a disease, and more than just the
health systems. With this paradigm, health is more like a fundamental human right. In the case of
HIV/AIDS spread among high-risk populations, PHC addresses the inequalities implicated by
the SDH of HIV/AIDS (Jourdal, 2016).
The relationship between the two paradigms of holistic healthcare is that they both
consider health to be more than just the absence of a disease, and regard health as a fundamental
human right (TG, 2015). They both champion the promotion of health and wellbeing of all
human beings in the universe irrespective of structural factors that inhibit equal distribution of
healthcare. This promotion of healthcare, according to SDH and PHC, involves the availing of
the necessary resources that people need to stay healthy. Besides, the two paradigms decry lack
of empowerment of portions of the community as a top cause for the health inequalities and are
keen to see the initiation of processes that would bring about a balance. Moreover, the two
paradigms strongly vouch for an inter-facet approach to solving the problems of health
inequality, while both of them agree that with a proper arrangement of the health sector, the
benefits reaped would be enough for the entire society (Kaakinen, Padgett Coehlo, Steele &
Robinson, 2018).
Having understood the link between Social Determinants of Health and Primary
Healthcare, it is therefore easy to point out the relationship between nursing and these two
paradigms as they prevent the spread of HIV among high-risk areas. According to (McMurray,
2015), high-risk areas that are most vulnerable to attacks by HIV/AIDS are the developing
countries where poverty levels are very high. Often, women and children are the most vulnerable
people, but recent data show that youths are even more at risk due to the kinds of lifestyle that
they live. This kind of data is useful to the nurses that use it as they take part in public health.

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The most important link that nurses have to SDH and PHC is that the curriculum taught
in nursing colleges and other knowledge fountains are full of SDH and PHC content which in
turn empowers the nurses to understand the nature of the real-time practice of medicine and
advocate for the necessary changes in the practice of medicine. Nurses also develop inter-
professional links with people that can contribute to the advocacy and redress to help tackle the
problems created by social determinants of health that amount to the spread of the HIV/AIDS
disease. Useful links between the nurses and other professionals like the legal practitioners have
helped in the advocacy that has ultimately helped in the push for redress in the social
determinants of health (Martinez, 2017).
Finally, a collaboration between nurses and other sectors in the society such as the
lawmaking bodies have proven to be important in the attempts to redress the negative social
determinants of health. Nurses, having adequate knowledge about the spread of HIV/AIDS and
its relationship to the existence of SDH have been able to influence policy such the making of
ARV drugs free in most of the high risk regions have been pivotal in the fight against negative
SDH such that most of the sick people are now able to access the once, costly ARV drugs yet
very important for every HIV patient. Though the going on the redress of the negative social
determinants of health is slow but the progress is sure, and soon the structural barriers to better
healthcare will be eliminated wholly (McMurray, 2015).
Roles and Responsibilities of Nurses involved in community health practice
Public health nurses have been pivotal in containing the spread of HIV/AIDS. They try to
combine community knowledge of a whole population with the individual, clinical know-how of
the health experiences of people within these communities. They often act as the voice of the

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populations they work and represent the aspirations and illness encounters of the communities
they work with to the health policymakers to formulate proper policies that benefit the entire
community. In controlling the spread of HIV/AIDS community nurses serve as a link of
knowledge that people tap to so that they can understand the disease in fine details because
nurses are full of knowledge on various modes of intervention that the society finds essential in
times of crisis. Public health nurses who are involved in community health practice carry out
various roles and responsibilities that they fulfill and ultimately control the spread of HIV/AIDS
(Mossialos, 2015).
First off, public health nurses are involved with the members of the community on a
much more personal level and can analyze data in accordance and evaluate public health trends
and HIV/ AIDS risk factors within the community. The resultant data is useful as the nurses use
it to fulfill their mandate by determining what actions are supposed to be taken to curb the spread
of the virus. This data is helpful to the nurse and the health system because they can determine
what actions ought to be taken first to prevent the spread of the disease (Natale, 2018).
Secondly, the public health nurse must work jointly with their community of situation or
particular cohorts of representatives of the broader population to formulate policies that are
useful in the prevention and containing HIV/AIDS (Supper, 2015). For instance, the nurses work
with these focus groups to formulate community-wide policies and the necessary public
awareness by creating the targeted promotions that help educate their communities on the
HIV/AIDS epidemic. Such groups are also crucial because the nurses can formulate the useful
strategies for tackling the disease and use the focus group to help educate the rest of the society
on how best to prevent the spread of the deadly HIV/AIDS (Northwood, 2018).

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Finally, public health nurses are essential in their participation in the evaluation of the
public health services for people that are suffering from the HIV disease and the general public
as well. Their participation is particularly important because the nurses ensure that people remain
informed of all they need to know about the HIV/AIDS disease. The people also get information
of any program that would be beneficial to their continued understanding of the HIV/AIDS, the
services that they may have and the nurse has the duty of ensuring that the people get to use
these essential services for their benefit (Pantelic, 2018).
Participative interventions
Participative intervention methods are essential in the process of curbing the spread of the
HIV/AIDS virus because the outcome of such exercises are more fruitful than when the
community sees itself as a consumer of solutions that others come up with, and they do not get to
weigh in. The community feels a sense of ownership when these participative approaches are
adapted to come up with long-lasting solutions for curbing the health issue. An example of the
participative approach is the use of community-based organizations or representatives from
within the community to help formulate a workable strategy for preventing the spread of the
deadly HIV/AIDS disease (Roye, 2016).
Conclusion
With the holistic nursing approaches they adopt in service delivery, nurses have a
significant role in contributing to the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. The process
requires well-informed and highly skilled professionals as an essential aspect of effective service
delivery, but this is not the case (Siqueira, 2015). Therefore, there is a need for the nurses to be
more active in advocating for patients, educating the risk population, and counseling patients

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among other active roles necessary in curbing the disease. However, there is a need for active
support of the nurses to enable them to implement holistic treatment guidelines effectively. The
nurses require quality and relevant skills in dealing with the stigma that still affects the society
hence minimizing their chances of reaching the vulnerable population.

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