Text

theses

African Americans have disproportionately been infected by HIV and AIDS with the largest rates of infection within the total population. Historically, for so many African Americans, the Black church has been a pillar in the community. It provides guidance for individual, political, and systemic change. The aim of this study is to improve HIV and AIDS awareness among the African American population with hopes of increasing the Black church memberships’ awareness and knowledge about these diseases by providing HIV education, conducting a seminar, and analyzing intent to obtain screening. This quasi-experimental study with a 19 - question pre-test and post-test design included a purposeful convenience sample of 21 Black men and women who were either a member of a targeted Black church or a member of the local community. The HIV-KQ-18 questionnaire, used to measure an individual’s knowledge about HIV, contained 18 ‘true’ or ‘false’ questions with the option of also choosing ‘don’t know.’ A question was added to address intent to screen, making the total 19. The answers options were the same. The results of this study indicated that there was an increase in knowledge baseline with a mean score improving from 13.7143 to 14.6198 with 18 being the highest score achievable. The intent to screen increased from 53% (n=11.13) to 88% (n=18.48) of participants reporting that they will get screened for HIV and AIDS. Additionally, a p-value of .009 indicates that there was a statistical significance relating to the likelihood that the increase in the intent to screen was in response to the educational seminar. The implications for practice indicate that HIV and AIDS educational awareness initiatives in the Black church are feasible with the potential to increase disease awareness, thus increasing HIV screening rates.

ETD_10120

DNP

Includes bibliographical references

doi:10.7282/t3-mn4w-gg47

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.