Abstract:

OBJECTIVE: To determine the knowledge levels of university healthscience students on HIV/AIDS and to identify the sources of false information. METHODS: 440 university health-science students were included in the study. A questionnaire developed by the researchers was used, and for the analysis, percentage, mean, standard deviation, Chi-square and logistic regression were used. RESULTS: The mean age was 20.79±1.68 (min 18, max 27) and most students were from nuclear families (86.6%). Most students informed on HIV/AIDS reported to have learned about HIV/AIDS in schools (75.5%). A great majority of students reported that the causative agent was a virus (93.6%), was detected by blood tests (93.0%), was not a hereditary disease (94.8%), was contracted during birth (86.1%), and was an untreatable disease (82.7%). During the evaluation of inaccurately-known topics, the most inaccurate information was found to be that individuals with HIV/AIDS have many other diseases (69.8%). In addition, it was discovered that students had inaccurate knowledge about the fact that weight loss is seen in the terminal period of the disease (35.5%), and the use of condoms decreases the risk (19.3%). CONCLUSION: It was concluded that most students have unsatisfactory knowledge on how HIV/AIDS is transmitted, and a lack of information and sources on HIV/AIDS was found to trigger inaccuracy.

Keywords: