An Investigation Of Hiv/aids Related Knowledge And Attitude And Effects Evaluation Of Health Education Among Female Detainees

ObjectiveWe choose the first detention facility (women detention facility) in Wuhan as the field for studying ,using focus group discussions and questionnaire survey to describe female detainees'social and population characters, AIDS-related knowledge and attitude and their influence factors, to do AIDS health education in different ways and then evaluate their effectiveness to find a proper model of AIDS health education for female detainees.MethodsThis study used qualitative methods with a combination of quantitative research methods. Qualitative methods included an in-depth personal interview with the police officers and focus group discussions with female detainees grouped by different arrested reasons. Quantitative methods including survey used a self-designed AIDS-related knowledge and attitude questionnaire. The methods for AIDS health education included expert instruction and peer education method. Before intervening we did a baseline survey and evaluated the effectiveness of that intervention by asking those women to fill in the same questionnaires again.ResultsWe investigated a total of 440 female detainees, including drug using 149, prostitution 73, gambling134 and stealing 37, other rest is 47. Significant differences lied in between different groups. Drug using women were younger, mostly unemployed, higher educational level, better family income. Most gambling women are middle-aged and unemployed, education levels and family economic conditions were similar to drug using women. Most prostitute women came from rural areas with lower education level and lower family incomes. Most stealing women were unemployed or farmers, with the lowest education levels and lowest family incomes. Female detainees received AIDS-related knowledge mainly from newspapers, magazines, television, public boards, medical institutions and internet. What they would like to know most was AIDS prevention knowledge, the second were transmission routes, and the third were clinical symptoms. For their favorite health education methods, lecture given by experts was in then first place, followed by pamphlet and TV show.For the basic knowledge about AIDS, "AIDS can be prevented," "More sexual partners, more vulnerable to HIV infection", "everyone has a chance to be infected with AIDS" were higher awareness; other issues were poor grasped of. Drug using women answered best while stealing women answered worst. For transmission routes of AIDS, "shaking hands, hugging," "sharing a toilet", "having meal", "swimming", "Blood transfusion", "sex", "syringe sharing" could be better aware of; "sharing toothbrush" and "birth" were knew poorer. For AIDS prevention methods, "daily exercise" and "vaccination" were better aware of and "no sharing syringes and far away form drug ", "non-use of unsafe blood products," "condoms using" "maintain a single sex partner," "cleaning genitalia before and after sex activity" were knew commonly while" HIV infected women should not breast-feeding their children" were poorly acknowledged.The majority of female detainees agreed with that "AIDS is not far away from us" and thought AIDS health education was very important, willing to teach AIDS–related knowledge they learned to their friends and relatives. But the number of stealing women who thought as above was less than other groups significantly. For how to face with AIDS patients, less than 1 / 3 female detainees chose "just as before".Results of logistic regression analysis showed that age, detention reason, education level, average family incomes every month, occupation, floating population, attitudes to "AIDS is far away from us" and "how to face with AIDS patients" all had significant impacts on their AIDS knowledge. Older age, higher education level, higher income, immigration are propitious for female detainees to get AIDS knowledge. Those women who have a correct attitude towards AIDS know more than those with false attitude. Drug users know more than prostitution women, and jobless women know more than peasantries, merchants and employees. Experts lecture and peer education can both significantly improve female detainees'knowledge of AIDS and attitude, they are almost the same in many aspects. Female detainees like experts lecture more, but peer education was better than experts lecture on improving knowledge of AIDS prevention.Conclusions1. With lower education levels of women and poorer economic conditions, and some AIDS high risk activities existed such as drug using and prostitution, coupling with the specificity of women's physiological structure, female detainees face higher risks of HIV infection than general population.2. Most women have some certain degree of AIDS knowledge, but still with lots of misconceptions, especially in mother to child transmission of HIV, the non-transmission routes and correct AIDS prevention knowledge. Even some women know nothing about AIDS at all. So there is an emergent need to do AIDS health education to them.3. Most female detainees can recognizes that AIDS is not far away from us and willing to accept some AIDS health education and impart knowledge to their families, but there are still obvious discriminations to AIDS patients. So we should pay attention to change their attitudes in health education progress.4. Female detainees learn AIDS-related knowledge mainly form newspapers and magazines, television, public board, medical institutions and internet. They like experts'lecture mostly. Therefore, we should choose appropriate methods to do AIDS health education.5. Experts lecture and peer education can both significantly improve female detainees'knowledge of AIDS and attitude. Female detainees like experts lecture more, but peer education was better than experts lecture to improve AIDS prevention knowledge. So we must tie them in to maximize their effects.