بررسی آگاهی و نگرش دانش‌آموزان دبیرستانی از بیماری ایدز در شهرستان ساوجبلاغ

The objective of the present study was to determine Savodjbolagh high school students’ knowledge and attitude to HIV and AIDS. In this descriptive cross-sectional study 1224 student were selected from 58 urban and rural high schools in Savojbolagh with the random numbers table. A questionnaire was administered by the researchers which contained some questions about HIV transmission ways, attitudes to HIV, questions on preventive methods and information sources of HIV. The analysis of the data was achieved by SPSS software. 29.7% of students believed that AIDS is a great threat to health while 19.5% of them believed environmental pollution is the main cause of it and 11.9% of them believed addiction is an important threat. 84.3% of the students were informed via television and only 15.5% of them got the information from their books. In their opinion, the majority of patients were infected by HIV through sexual misbehaviours(34.9%) and IV drugs abusing(33.1%). They believed that one of the main ways of transmission was using a common shaving blade(43%). About 58% of students believed that the infected patients had to be isolated. 39% and 81% of the students believed that condom and vaccination are effective ways for preventing AIDS, respectively. 64% of students preferred to be informed by the medical experts. 91% of students, agreed about, the compulsory HIV screening before marriage. This study revealed that television has an important role in improving students’ knowledge towards AIDS while their courses do not have enough information to aware them. Most of the students preferred to get information from the medical experts. The students have limited knowledge about AIDS transmission ways, its preventive and contraception methods. It seems that training of reproductive health is definitely required.