Int Conf AIDS. 1996 Jul 7-12;11(1):172 (abstract no. Mo.D.1686). Unique
Objectives: To assess the levels of information, attitudes, beliefs and
practices, in order to provide support to an intervention program on
AIDS prevention among adolescents. Methods: A survey was conducted among
students of the night shift of a public school in Ribeirao Preto, State
of Sao Paulo, Brazil. A total of 499 adolescents, between 13 and 20
years old, completed a standardized questionnaire anonymously. 53% of
them were boys and 47% girls, most of them of low socio-economic level.
Results: 278 (55.7%) of the youths had a sexually active life. Out of
them, 50.2% had steady partners. 69.3% of these believed their partners
only had sexual intercourse with them; 7.9% knew their partners had
sexual intercourse with others and 22.8% said they did not know about
it. The majority of them had a good level of knowledge on AIDS
transmission (an average of 90% of correct answers), and presented a
positive atitude about condom use (an average of 62%), but actually only
32.2% reported the use of condoms in all times they had sexual
intercourses. 21.3% reported the use of condoms less than half of the
times, and 24% reported they never used condoms. The most frequent
reasons for non use of condoms were: that with a steady partner there is
no risk of AIDS (60.9%) and thats when two people love each other the
risk is low (35%). Conclusions: Knowledge is not enough to produce
behavior changes. During the intervention program developed at the
school it became clear the need to work on gender relationships and some
beliefs that lead to misjudgment about AIDS vulnerability, such as that
in stable relationships of 3 or 4 months) people are no more strange and
therefore they do not need to use condoms.
*Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome/PREVENTION & CONTROL *Knowledge,
Attitudes, Practice *Sexually Transmitted Diseases/PREVENTION & CONTROL