An awareness study of HIV/AIDS among adolescent students of Chitwan district, Nepal

Abstract

A cross sectional study was conducted among the adolescent students of 12 randomly selected
higher secondary school of Chitwan district, Nepal with an objective to assess the awareness by
studying their knowledge and attitude towards the disease. It is really very gratifying to note that
100.0% of the respondents had heard about the disease and majority of them (95.0% ) had correct
knowledge about the causative agents. Among the respondents quite large number of students
(79.0%) knew about high risk age group and 81.0% were aware about safe sex as one of the major
preventive measure. The attitude of respondents towards the AIDS patients was firmly positive.
Among them 84.5% had no objection in treating AIDS patients in the general hospital with extra
precaution. The main source of their information, education and communication were from electronic
media. These observations were indicative of good awareness about the disease which will definitely
help in bringing about behavioral change at the individual level and will go in a long way for
prevention of transmission amongst the high risk groups and to contain its spread.