Knowledge of HIV/AIDS among Secondary School Adolescents in Calabar - Nigeria

Published in the Annals of African Medicine (Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 2-6), this evaluation report explores strategies for strengthening awareness about HIV/AIDS through the media, workshops and peer education, and printed materials. In it, the authors describe an observational study they carried out among secondary school students in Calabar, Nigeria. The aim of the study was to establish the impact of these different types of awareness programmes on students.

Based on data from a structured questionnaire, the authors indicate that HIV/AIDS awareness among adolescents in Calabar is still poor. For instance, 181 (31.2%) of the adolescents did not know the etiological agents of HIV/AIDS. While the majority (90%) knew that HIV/AIDS is transmitted through sexual intercourse, only 78 (13.4%) of them knew that HIV carriers might look normal, and 32.9% reported believing HIV/AIDS cannot be prevented. Erroneous beliefs (such as HIV/AIDS being more common among the uneducated, and transmission of HIV/AIDS through sharing of cups and spoons) were documented, which the authors imply has led to reluctance among 38.1% of respondents to have AIDS patients cared for at home.

In evaluating strategies for addressing these and other gaps in awareness described in the report, the authors find that mass media was the main source of information on HIV/AIDS for these adolescents, with television and radio being dominant. However, the authors explain that, while "[i]t is apparent that the mass media has succeeded in creating awareness on HIV/AIDS...[it] is inefficient to impact sufficient knowledge that will aid in controlling the disease." In short, they say, to foster real behaviour change based on in-depth knowledge of the disease, parents, teachers, and health workers should be more involved in educating youth. That is, "there is [a] need to follow up the awareness created by the mass media with a more detailed person to person health educational approach." (Yet, as the authors found, only 22.6% and 2.2% of the students reported having received information about HIV/AIDS from teachers and parents, respectively.) Another suggested interpersonal strategy cited here is training peer health educators to educate their peers on HIV/AIDS issues.

In addition to an increased focus on interpersonal communication to spur HIV/AIDS awareness, the authors advocate for more attention to the "reading culture" of students, which they found to be quite poor. They indicate that "There is vast amount of literature on HIV/AIDS. If the students had a good reading culture there would have been a higher report of those who got their information from journals, magazines and books." They indicate that students should also be encouraged to read by making literature on HIV/AIDS available in their schools.