[Assessing the risk of HIV infection in the clinic and daily environment by medical students].

The potential risks of obtaining an HIV infection during the clinical routine becomes recently more and more a subject for discussion. The assessment of HIV transmission in the hospital by medical students seems to be important, because medical students are doing practical nursing training, medical clerkships and courses in the hospital, are in a developing process to their later social role as a physician and because of their age, they belong to the group with the highest statistical risk of getting HIV infected. The following study analysed the view of medical students to get HIV infected in typical clinical routine situations and non-clinical situations. 316 medical student in the first year (average age: 22 years, female = 171, male = 145) estimated the risk of getting HIV infected for 18 different clinical and non-clinical situations. The survey was done in 1991 and 1993. It becomes obvious, that medical students still have gaps in their knowledge about HIV transmission. Over 10% of them estimated non-clinical situations like mosquito- and animal-bites or clinical situations like changing dirty linen or physical examination as situations with a high risk of getting HIV infected. The study shows, that medical students need more informations and counselling about HIV related aspects for their later work as a physician.