Review article
Fight against Ignorance and Prejudice about Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Knowledge and Attitudes about HIV/AIDS of High-School Teachers and Students
Vesna Jureša
; Škola narodnog zdravlja
Marija Posavec
; Zavod za javno zdravstvo
Vera Musil
; Škola narodnog zdravlja
Davor Petrović
; KBC Zagreb
Abstract
The occurrence of HIV/AIDS in the 20th century and its geographical spread have again shown how a disease can be stigmatized and how prejudice and ignorance can be fought only with permanent, continuous and comprehensive education. Therefore, the project "Training of Professionals in the Implementation of the HIV/AIDS Prevention Program" was implemented within the program "Improving Fight against HIV/AIDS in Croatia, 2003 – 2006". One of the goals of this project was to assess the knowledge and attitudes about HIV/AIDS of high-school teachers and students prior to and after the implementation of the project. At the beginning of the implementation,
476 high-school teachers and 1026 first-grade and third-grade students were surveyed. At the end of the program, 1024 students from the same schools and of the same grades were surveyed. As expected, teachers exhibited a higher level of knowledge than students. A positive trend was recorded in students surveyed after the program completion. However, despite the program, 10.8% of students believed that HIV could be contracted by sharing a meal with an HIV infected person, while 23.9% believed that it could be contracted by mosquito bites. Every fourth student would not allow HIV positive children to go to school and 40% would not allow HIV positive teachers to work in school. Every fi fth student would not have an HIV positive physician, and only 17% would visit an HIV positive dentist. Survey results show that better knowledge does not necessarily entail a more positive attitude towards people with HIV/
AIDS. Therefore, one should emphasize the necessity of comprehensive, continuous and systematic HIV/AIDS education of
both young and all other citizens.
Keywords
education; sexually transmitted diseases; HIV/AIDS; positive attitude
Hrčak ID:
48272
URI
Publication date:
19.2.2009.
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