This is an exploratory descriptive study with a qualitative approach that had as its purpose to characterize the educational activities of the nurses that work in the prevention and control program for sexually transmittable diseases and AIDS in the municipality of Natal, RN. The study was conducted in the basic health care units with 10 (ten) nurses that implemented educational activities in AIDS prevention. A structured interview was used and content analysis techniques were applied to the data. It was identified that the majority of the nurses understood health education as the transmission of information and that the AIDS prevention program had insufficient actions, lacked structure in the service settings and institutional support by the Municipal Secretariat of Health. The program activities were characterized as traditional limited, sporadic, and lacking human and material resources.
nurse; education health; AIDS prevention