Investigation On Medical Students' Cognition About AIDS And Effect Evaluation Of AIDS Health Education

Objective: To understand the medical students'interrelated knowledge,attitude,demand and behavior tendency to HIV/AIDS, analyze the effect of AIDS health education, explore the effective measure about AIDS health education and provide science evidence for the government to drawing pertinent health education strategy and integrate preventive measure. Methods: This study was conducted in two medical college (Tongji Medical College of Huazhong Science and Technology University and The Science and Technology University of WuHan)from May to June 2006. (1) Adopt across-section study to investigate the medical students with AIDS interrelated knowledge, attitude, demand and behavior, and analyze the effect of AIDS health education. (2) Qualitative investigation: Adopt the method of focus group discussion, use self-made syllabus and questions to interview and discuss, investigate the attitude of medical students to people who infect HIV or suffer from AIDS and their demands of AIDS knowledge and the major problems and suggestion about AIDS health education at present. Results: (1) The cognition condition about AIDS of medical students: The total scores of AIDS knowledge fluctuated between 17 and 100, and the mean score was 76.68.The proportion of students who got scores between 70 and 90 was 78.32%. Although a great number of students known the three major propagation paths, they were still unfamiliar with the details, for example, the knowing ratios about"what was the concept of AIDS window phase"and"whether or not AIDS window phase had infectivity"were only 27.83% and 63.05%. Among the questions of AIDS preventive measures, except the right ratio of"Avoiding mosquito biting and cure venereal disease actively whether or not can prevent AIDS were about 60%, the other knowing ratios of preventive measure were high. Different age group had different knowledge score, and the difference had statistic significance(F=5.54,P<0.01). Among the four age groups, the score of 22 was higher than other groups. (2) Survey of the medical students'sexual concept and behavior: Among the 406 students surveyed, 71.67% of them agreed with the college students'loving, about 85% thought that their lovers should be isomerism, 10% identified with"affection outside marriage"and"one-night passion", 77.83% couldn't rightly use condoms, 95.32% didn't realize the danger of infecting HIV. As the AIDS related knowledge increased, them sexual concept was more open, and more prone to comprehend"one-night passion", homoerotism, affection outside marriage and tend to seek safe sexual behavior. (3) Survey of attitude and behavior to AIDS of medical students: Among the 406 students surveyed, majority possessed the attitude of dread even discrimination towards AIDS patients. 50.99% of them regarded that HIV carriers should leave school, 72.91% denied the AIDS patients'work right, 22.91% suggested that AIDS patients should be insulated until they had been dead, only 62.81% wanted to be volunteers to take care of AIDS patients. When a HIV infector was detected, 62.81% of the students regarded that it was necessary to keep secret for protecting the infectors'rights and interests: if one of their friends had been infected HIV, 20.69% of the students would cease directly contacting with him or her. (4) Paths obtaining AIDS related knowledge: Among the 406 students, 75.86% of them thought that setting up the AIDS health education was necessary. Only 13.05% agreed their knowledge of preventing or curing AIDS was enough. The main paths of gaining AIDS were mass media, correlative books and school education, which were also the students'wishful sources. For the source of medical staff, the wishful ratio was distinctly higher than the factual ratio, the difference had statistic significance(χ~2=36.72, P<0.01). The students had strong demands to AIDS related knowledge, including the prevention and cure measures, propagation paths, detecting measures, etc. (5) The status of colleges'AIDS health education: Currently the familiar ways of AIDS health education in college were publicize column, class education and AIDS propagandize association. Among the 406 objects, only 23.40% were satisfied with the condition of school AIDS health education .They ranked the deficiencies as: lacking long-term stable propagandize mode, content deviating from practice, the university thinking low of health education, propagators being not professionals, etc. (6) Effect of AIDS health education: The mean score of AIDS knowledge before the health education was 76.22, and it increased to 85.42 after health education, higher 9.20 than it, the difference had statistical significance (t=-6.01, P<0.01). Comparing the right ratios the health education before and after, the students'AIDS knowledge level visibly improved higher than education before, especially the knowing ratios of some important questions distinctly improved such as"the detection time of neonates","whether or not AIDS patients could be cured if treated earlier","birth canal was the spreading path of HIV virus","whether those measures could prevent suffering from AIDS such as washing closes stool frequently and avoiding from mosquito biting". The right rate of basic knowledge improved from 13.01%～99.19% (education before) to 33.13%～100%(education after), which showed that the health education played an important role in improving AIDS knowledge level. After the health education, the students changed partial attitude and behavior to AIDS. The answering ratio of positive attitude to AIDS improved after education, especially the rate of"the HIV carrier should not leave school or go home"advanced from 57.72% to 82.54%.the difference had statistical significance(χ2=15.08,P<0.01).When an infector was detected, 82.54% (after education) considered"they should keep secret to outside in order to protect his right", increasing 16.69% than 65.85% (before education). The difference made statistical significance(χ2=5.69,P<0.05), which explained that the level of students'social morality had improved after health education. Although the number of the students who unwilling to contact with AIDS patients, keeping the AIDS patients or HIV infectors away and denying their work right were significantly decrease, the ratios of these items were still high, which were 15.86%, 7.94% and 65.08% respectively, but the difference had no statistical significance compared with education before. Conclusion: The colleges don't pay much attention to publicizing the knowledge of AIDS preventing and curing. The medical college students have strong demands to the AIDS knowledge. and college should develop AIDS health education to improve students'cognition level of AIDS, and to conduct them forming right behavior and attitude so as to control the spread of AIDS more preferably.