| Abstract: | The study has had three fold objectives: to investigate hearing impaired students
knowledge, attitude and behavior about HIV/AIDS preventive measures, to find out
whether or not knowledge, attitude and behavior of the hearing impaired students about
HIV/AIDS preventive measures relate each other and to determine whether or not
difference exists regarding knowledge, attitude and behavior about HIV/AIDS preventive
measures within the groups of the hearing impaired across the sexes. To materialize
these objectives, from a total of 151 hearing impaired students, 80 students (46 males and
34 females) were selected by stratified followed by simple random sampling technique.
And male and female students from each stratum were taken proportionally. The result of
this research showed that nearly half (62.8%) and below half (37.2%) of the hearing
impaired students had correct knowledge and incorrect knowledge about HIV/AIDS
preventive measures respectively. Concerning their attitude, below half of the
respondents had unfavorable (48%) and favorable attitude (43.8%) about the preventive
measures, and 8.2% of the respondents were in dilemma to decide whether or not they
have favorable / unfavorable attitude. 42.2 % of the hearing impaired students did not
practice any of the precautions not to be infected by HIV/AIDS, but only 17.8%, and 42%
of the respondents practice the preventive measures sometimes. And there was
statistically significant relationship among knowledge, attitude and behavior about
HIV/AIDS preventive measures (X2=649.410, df=4, P=0.000). There was no statistically
significant difference in knowledge(X2 =0.042, df=1, P= 0.877) and behavior(X2=0.496,
df=1, P=0.481) between female and male respondents. However, there was a significant
difference in attitude between the sexes of the respondents about HIV/AIDS preventive
measures (X2=13.946, df=1, P=0.000).That means females have more positive attitude
(mean rank of 653.15) to the practice the preventive measures than males do have (mean
rank of 579.17). Finally, mounting efforts should be made to adapt the teaching of
HIV/AIDS to the special needs of the hearing impaired. |
