Abstract

GARRUCHO, Sónia. Atitudes dos psiquiatras em relação SIDA: Hospitais Psiquiátricos versus departamento de psiquiatria de Hospitais Gerais. Aná. Psicológica [online]. 2000, vol.18, n.3, pp.319-324. ISSN 0870-8231.

Psychiatrists may play a leading role in the prevention of the HIV infection, namely in reference to subjects with various mental disorders. Besides, psychiatrists are becoming more and more requested to evaluate and treat subjects with mental pathology associated with the HIV infection and AIDS. Therefore it has become relevant to study the attitudes of psychiatrists towards AIDS. This article presents the results of a study whose aim was to investigate the attitude of physicians towards AIDS and to compare the attitudes of psychiatrists who work in psychiatric hospitals with the attitude of those who work in the department of psychiatry of general hospitals. A sample of 90 psychiatrists of both genders was studied: they were 43 years old on average, from the district of Lisbon; most of them were married, with children and with professional contact with subjects infected with HIV or with AIDS. The physicians under study, particularly those who were single and childless, showed a predominantly positive and favourable attitude to AIDS, revealing their low perception of risk, both personal and professional, in relation to HIV infection. Therefore, the correlation between attitudes and perception of risk is negative. Finally, some differences were found between psychiatrists who work in psychiatric hospitals and those who work in the department of psychiatry of general hospitals over the obtaining of informed consent to undergo the HIV test and the systematic medical evaluation of the patients.

Keywords : Attitudes; perception of risk; psichiatrists; AIDS; informed consent.

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