Medicina Comunitária e Educação em Saúde

Abstrato

Knowledge and Awareness of AIDS among University of Kassala Students, Sudan

Fatima A khalid, Abdalla A Mohammed and Ehab A Farah

Background: HIV/AIDS is the global health problem. Sudan is most severely affected country in North Africa and Middle East. 500,000 individuals from different sectors of the community, including students, were estimated to be lived with HIV/ AIDS. Aim: To investigate the knowledge and awareness of HIV/AIDS among the students of University of Kassala. Method: Descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among the students of the University of Kassala, Kassala State, Sudan. The study was held from April through July 2011. Data was collected through self administered questionnaire and analyzed by using SPSS version (16.0). Results: The students were knowledgeable about the infectious nature of the disease (78.7%) and the causative agent (91.7%). Moreover, they were aware of route of transmission through sexual intercourse (88.4%), transfusion of contaminated blood (71.9%), usage of contaminated needle (73.7%) and vertically from mother to child (64.1%). Less than half of the students knew the symptoms of HIV/AIDS and only 20% of them knew the fact that, AIDS had no vaccine. More than half of the students were aware of prevention of HIV/AIDS by health education and not sharing the instruments with infected persons. Conclusion: The students had a satisfactory knowledge on the communicability of the disease, the  ausative agents, and they were aware of route of transmission but misconception of the symptoms and preventive measure. The source of information for all students is the mass media which is not satisfactory enough, so intensive health education programs are required and included in the curriculum of faculties.