Evaluation of the AIDS risk perception among healthcare workers in the Hospital University Unit of Messina (Italy).

The Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome HIV related, has represented, in the last decades of last century, the illness that has aroused the most interest in the world population. All of this, not so much for the severity of the clinical picture induced by HIV infection, but because, it is automatically connected to the behavioural circles of the sexual sphere, with all the possible moralistic lapels. The media, in more a positive and effective way, has given enormous resonance to the scientific matter, but their contradictory ability to amplify and exacerbate any problem of public attention, has had, with AIDS the most disruptive demonstration. In fact for several years, there has been a decrease in attention to the “AIDS” problem by the media, thus affecting the real interest by the general population. The consequence of all this has led to the decline in risk perception in the public and probably also among healthcare workers. The present research has been produced with the aim to evaluate, in the context of healthcare workers of the hospital University unit in Messina (Italy), what exactly is the current perception of “AIDS” risk The research started in January and went on till December 2006. The survey was carried out by handing a written and anonymous From the data obtained we advance the hypothesis that, not only the disinterest of the mass-media is at the base of the phenomenon, but also the inattention to the problem and the decrease of the risk perception on the part of the same healthcare personnel (doctors and not), could reinforce the idea that it is possible to underrate HIV risk among common people.