Assessing Healthcare Providers’ Knowledge and Attitudes Towards HIV/AIDS in Nigerian Hospitals: A Narrative Review

Healthcare providers (HCPs) are central to Nigeria’s HIV response, yet gaps in HIV knowledge, fear of occupational exposure, and stigmatizing attitudes can undermine testing, treatment uptake, retention, and patient dignity. This narrative review synthesizes evidence on Nigerian hospital-based HCPs’ (and closely related facility-based cadres’) knowledge and attitudes towards HIV/AIDS, highlighting key drivers of stigma and practical, system-level interventions. Evidence consistently links negative attitudes to perceived personal risk, incomplete understanding of HIV transmission, limited access to infection-prevention resources, and weak institutional enforcement of antidiscrimination norms. Studies in Nigeria document discriminatory practices and resistance to providing care among a subset of health workers, alongside settings where measured stigma is comparatively low, suggesting that context, training, and facility readiness matter. Targeted continuing professional development, reliable infection-prevention supplies, and “rights + safety” institutional policies (anti-stigma + occupational safety/PEP systems) are the most actionable levers for improving provider behavior and patient outcomes. Keywords: HIV/AIDS, healthcare workers, knowledge, attitudes, stigma, discrimination, Nigeria, hospitals, PEP, PMTCT.