THE DEVELOPMENT OF ADOLESCENTS´ KNOWLEDGE OF HOW HIV SPREADS

1. THE DEVELOPMENT OF ADOLESCENTS´ KNOWLEDGE OF HOW HIV SPREADS Muñoz Silva, Alicia & Sánchez García, Manuel Universidad de Huelva Abstract The purpose of this study is to analyze the knowledge of means of spread of HIV in university students of different ages. The sample consisted of 930 students (71% girls and 29% boys) of different Andalusian universities, aged between 18 and 21 years. The subjects filled out a questionnaire to measure the level of knowledge about HIV and how it spreads. The results showed that younger students made more mistakes and had more incorrect ideas than older ones; in other words, the level of knowledge increases with age. In spite of this tendency, a great percentage of adolescents of all ages made serious mistakes in some questions. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for adolescents´ health. Adolescents could make wrong decisions in their sexual relations due to the fact that they believe that their behaviour is not dangerous. Thus, it is necessary that programmes for the prevention of HIV emphasize the change of false ideas for correct ones. Introduction Results Despite most models to make predictions about prevention behaviours do not include the knowledge of means of spread of HIV like a decisive factor that determine directly prevention behaviours, this knowledge is also an important variable that it is necessary to consider (Ford and Norris, 1993; Maticka-Tyndale, 1991). Furthermore, in other papers (Sánchez, 2001; Sánchez and Muñoz, 2001) we have found that the level of knowledge in this field is perceived by the adolescents and by the professionals as an influential factor that must be considerated. On the other hand, the knowledge of means of spread of HIV is in the base of some models that are utilized to make predictions about prevention behaviours, as the Health Belief Model (HBM; Janz and Becker, 1984) or the Theory of Reasoned Action (TAR; Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). In the first case, as determinant of the susceptibility and perceived seriousness and, in the case of TAR, as direct determinant of the subjects´ attitudes. The aim of this study is to analyze the level of knowledge of means of spread of HIV and prevention behaviours of a large sample of university adolescents. Also, we purpose to relate this knowledge with other variables like gender, age and to have or not have kept sexual relations. The percentage of mistakes in these items varies between 17.5 % of the students that think that any contraceptive method is effective to HIV prevention, and 34.7% of them that believe that HIV can not be transmitted by oral sex. If we relate the knowledge with other variables, we find that the level of knowledge is bigger among the subjects that have a steady partner and among who have already kept sexual relations. The gender of the students also is a significant variable: the percentage of correct answers is higher for boys than for girls. In relation to the age of the subjects we have not found significant differences. However, we can observe in figure 1 a clear tendency in the sense of that older students make less mistakes than younger ones. Table 1. Percentage of correct answers. Comparison in relation to some variables Method Participants The sample consisted of 930 students (71% girls and 29% boys) of different Andalusian universities, aged between 18 and 21 years (average 19.81 years). Fifty-eight per cent of all the students tell to have steady partner and sixty per cent affirm to have kept sexual relations. Instruments and variables Data were gathered through a self-administered questionnaire about risk/prevention behaviours for AIDS (Sánchez, 2001). The considered variables in this study were the students´ answers to five items (see table 1) related to knowledge of means of spread of HIV. The originals options of response were true or false, but after they were turned into correct and incorrect answers. = p < .01; = p < .001 Figure 1. Percentage of correct answers in relation to age Discussion The results obtained allow us to conclude that these adolescents have a low level of knowledge of means of spread of HIV, despite they are university students. In this sense, it is very worrying that 21.3% of all the students think that an only risk practice do not transmit the HIV, or that 17.5% of them believe that any contraceptive method protects from the disease. We have to consider that this lack of information can lead to risk bahaviours, as it means a low or non-existent perception of danger. The bigger level of knowledge among older students and among who have kept sexual relations can be explained by their need of increase the information before the higher probability of infection. These results are consistent with prior research of Santín, Torrico, López and Revilla (2003) with adolescents aged between 14 and 20 years. Anyway, as a great percentage of adolescents make serious mistakes it is necessary that programmes for the prevention of HIV emphasize the change of false ideas for correct ones. This is already more important with younger and unware adolescents, who have higher possibilities of keeping no planned sexual relations, especially if we consider that some studies (for example, Krahé and Reiss, 1995) have showed that the importance of knowledge in the prediction of the prevention behaviour is bigger among subjects that have not kept sexual relations. Therefore, a factor so important for the prevention must be specially considered among the youngest and inexperienced adolescents. References Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention and behavior: An introduction to theory and research. Reading: Addison Wesley. Ford, K., & Norris, A. E. (1993). Knowledge of AIDS transmission, risk behaviour, and perceptions of risk among urban, low-income, African-american and Hispanic youth. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 9 (5), 297-306. Janz, N.K., & Becker, M. H. (1984). The Health Belief Model: A decade later. Health Education Quarterly, 11 (1), 1-47. Krahé, B., & Reiss, C. (1995). Predicting intentions of AIDS-preventive behavior among adolescents. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 25 (23), 2118-2140. Maticka-Tyndale, E. (1991). Sexual script and AIDS prevention: variation in adherence to safer-sex guidelines by heterosexual adolescents. The Journal of Sex Research, 28 (1), 45-68. Sánchez, M. (2001). Validation of items and tests: An application to measure of risk behaviours of transmission of the HIV. Unpublised doctoral thesis. University of Sevilla. Sánchez, M., & Muñoz, A. (2001). Analysis of open answers in a questionnaire about AIDS-related behaviors. Revista de Psicología Social, 16 (3), 261-273. Santín, C., Torrico, E., López, M. J., & Revilla, C. (2003). Knowledge and use of the contraceptive methods and their relationship with the prevention of illnesses of sexual transmision in young. Anales de Psicología, 19 (1), 81-90. Alicia Muñoz Silva. Departamento de Psicología. Universidad de Huelva. amsilva@uhu.es