ABSTRACT
It is important to recognise that the widely perceived moral and threatening character associated with HIV/AIDS means that training and education can never be a simple matter. Clearly a precondition for any development in this area is the provision of good, reliable factual data about the virus. For instance: that becoming HIV positive is a result of behaviour not of social identity; that HIV can only be transmitted through blood to blood or sexual contact and not through ordinary workplace activity; that a person who is HIV positive can be perfectly healthy for many years and that someone with living with AIDS is not necessarily going to die immediately or be totally incapacitated. It is also necessary to address the attitudes, values and emotional responses of individuals because these can play an important role in determining the extent to which factual data is seen as credible (Goss and Adam-Smith 1993). For example, one chef who was interviewed by CAER was absolutely convinced that HIV could be transmitted upon money. He was willing to ask all his waitresses to wear rubber gloves. When it was pointed out that the information his judgements were based on was inaccurate, his response was: “It can’t be wrong, I read it in The Sun!” Thus the attitudinal and behavioural dimension of training is likely to be important as more organisations develop formal policies relating to HIV and AIDS and expect employees to respond appropriately to them.
