Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of First Year Students Regarding HIV/AIDS at SMU

Abstract

HIV/AIDS has been a global challenge since its advent in the 1980's. The pandemic has even been greater in the third world with Sub-Saharan Africa being hit hard. Ethiopia as one of the countries in the region was not an exception. The country had more than 800,000 people living with the virus with a national HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of 1.5%. Knowledge, attitude and practice of students regarding HIV/AIDS are of paramount importance in the prevention and control of the epidemic. This study tried to assess SMU's freshman students (2013/14 entry) knowledge, attitude and practice regarding HIV/AIDS. The study revealed that the majority of the students have good knowledge, desirable attitudes and good practices concerning the issue. However, 42.5%, 32% and 38.5% of the respondents are found to have no knowledge about the facts that not having sex with CSW and abstinence can prevent oneself from HIV/AIDS and that a healthy looking person can be HIV/AIDS positive, respectively. Undesirable attitude was observed among 49.5% regarding living and working/learning with PLWHA. Similarly, 29.5% of the students disagreed on the preventive role of being loyal to ones sexual partner. Likewise, 36% of them do not believe that anyone can be infected by the virus. Concerning practice, 54.5% of the respondents do not want to be seen holding condoms. Despite the 97.5% agreement of the respondents on the importance of VCT, 58.5% of them had never utilized the service. Unsafe sexual practices such as sex with CSW, sex after alcohol/drug consumption and sex after watching pornography were observed among 7%, 13% and 6.5% of the respondents, respectively.