Acquired immuno-deficiency syndrome

what do adolescent students know about its mechanism of transmission?

Abstract

Questionnaires concerning various situations on the AIDS transmission were presented to 298 adolescent students: 81 (27,2%) attending public government's institutions and 217 (72.8%) from a private school. ln addition, the sarne questions were presented to teachers working in the sarne schools. The frequency of correct answers in the first group was of 70.9 % and, in the second, of 82.0%, among teachers, corrected answers were yielded in 76.9 % of the situations. The highest frequencies of incorrect answers were associated with questions related to blood donation: 54.8 % ot participants answered that AIDS could be transmitted to a person who donates blood in a transfusion bank; in addition, 57.9% of them consider blood donors as belonging to a high-risk group, comparable to both homossexuais and drug addicts.