Knowledge, Attitude and Sources of Information for Increasing Awareness about HIV/AIDS among College Students
Journal Title: Healthline - Year 2013, Vol 4, Issue 1
Abstract
Background: In India people in the age group of 15-29 years account for 31 percent of all Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome cases. This clearly indicates that young people are at high risk of contracting HIV infection. A couple of HIV/AIDS awareness programmes are there in place in India, an analysis of the media used to disseminate information needs to be conducted to determine if new methods of communication can be incorporated to create better awareness and enhance the knowledge of young people. Aims: The present study was conducted; 1) to determine the level of information that college students have about HIV/AIDS in order to take further steps towards increasing their knowledge base and consequently changing their behaviour vis-à-vis HIV/AIDS, 2) to determine the relationship between level of knowledge about HIV/AIDS and attitude towards people with HIV/AIDS among college students, 3) to determine the types of media used to disseminate information in college students. Method: This is a cross sectional study. A purposive sample of 100 students, comprising equal number of boys and girls in the age range of 18 to 23 years were selected. They belonged to arts and commerce faculties from English medium of private colleges in the city of Hyderabad. Results: It was found that the level of knowledge about HIV/AIDS was average and the attitude towards people with HIV / AIDS was positive among the students. There was a significant positive correlationbetween level of knowledge and positive attitude. However, most of the students were unable to state the predominant modes of transmission of HIV and had a few misconceptions about HIV transmission indicating lack of comprehensive knowledge. It was also found that students were receptive to increasing their knowledge about the disease. They reported to being comfortable learning more about HIV/AIDS from health professionals, their peers and mass media, due to accessibility, comfortability and anonymity. Conclusions: Based on the findings of this study, better methods of promoting knowledge about HIV need to be used extensively in addition to the existing ones in order to ensure correct, comprehensive and long lasting information retention.
Authors and Affiliations
Swati Agarwal , Sushma B
Keywords
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