A review of the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of university students concerning HIV/AIDS

This paper reviews the current literature related to HIV/AIDS and university students, and discusses how this information can be used in health promotion programming and evaluation. Research related to HIV/AIDS among university students has focused primarily on the assessment of knowledge, attitudes and behaviours and, to a lesser extent, on the effectiveness of educational interventions. Ensuring the greatest success involves a multifaceted and coordinated effort which brings together faculty, administration, students, health education professionals and the external community of students. Any program targeting HIV/AIDS can be included in a more comprehensive initiative for improving and maintaining student health. The skills learned to reduce the risk of HIV infection are transferable to other health issues and involve empowering students to take control and responsibility for their actions. This empowerment, combined with good knowledge and healthy attitudes, will allow the skills learned to be used when students are outside of the university setting. Social research can contribute to the achievement of safer sexual behaviour in three ways. First, by describing the range of the problem. Second, by detecting the most dominant factors that affect the acceptance or rejection of recommended health behaviours. Such factors have to be studied on the personal level, as well as on the social organizational levels - the specific community and its culture. Third, by evaluating the effectiveness of educational interventions by monitoring changes in health beliefs and behaviours, and particularly in association to specific methods of intervention. Repeated surveys and evaluation studies are necessary since beliefs and behaviour change over time. Based on the findings of such studies, health promotion should be planned, implemented and continuously evaluated, updated and changed. This indicates that health promotion is one of the areas where social science theory, research and practice have to be intertwined on an ongoing basis in order to be effective.