Persons living with AIDS in nurses' social representations: analysis of central, contranormative and attitudinal elements.

OBJECTIVES to describe and analyze the centrality, the mute zone and the attitudes expressed in nurses' social representations of people with Human Immunodeficiency Virus. METHOD the subjects were 30 nurses from a university hospital in Rio de Janeiro. The data was collected using a Likert scale. RESULTS the data pointed to a process of representational change regarding Human Immunodeficiency Virus / Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, with the assumption of a more positive attitude regarding living with this health issue. The hypothesis of the existence of a mute zone in the representation, comprising elements with a contranormative character, was strengthened. CONCLUSION the influence of the dynamics of social normativity on how the social representations studied are expressed may contribute to a better understanding of its structuring process. It also helps in the analysis of possible gaps among the nurses' discourses and practices in relation to Human Immunodeficiency Virus / Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome.