Awareness status about HIV/AIDS among Indian railway's employees and their family members

A house to house survey was conducted in December 2005 in the Railway Colony of Shamli, located in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India using a semistructured questionnaire to study the awareness level regarding HIV/AIDS among Indian Railway's employees and their family members. Information regarding demographic characteristics and knowledge about various aspects of HIV/AIDS was recorded by a trained staff nurse of the local Railway Medical Unit from at least one person, aged 15 years to 59 years, from each household. Among 293 individuals interviewed, majority were males (61.8%), aged > 30 years (56.6%) and literate (85.3%). Majority were aware about existence of HIV infection in India (92.5%), AIDS is a fatal disease (92.8%) and laboratory tests are available for detecting HIV infection (89.4%). Although most of them knew the correct routes of HIV transmission viz. sexual (91.50%), parentral (90.8%), perinatal route (86.3%) and blood transfusion (86.0%), misconceptions such as transmission through shaking hands (89.1%), hugging (88.4%), sharing utensils (82.6%), mosquito bite (74.1%) and using public toilets (73.4%) were also observed. Most of them were also aware about preventive measures. Knowledge about various aspects was observed to be significantly higher among females, among individuals aged <45 years and literate individuals. The findings highlight the need of intensified health education focusing on removal of misconceptions and further improvement in awareness level of the study population.