What Irish schoolchildren know about AIDS

AIDS in the Republic of Ireland has so far mainly been associated with intravenous drug use. However, because of growing public pressure to mount an AIDS campaign aimed at potentially vulnerable sub-groups, we conducted a survey of knowledge and attitudes related to AIDS among 891 Irish schoolchildren in the senior years of secondary school. Although virtually none of the children had received any classroom education on AIDS and no national education programme had been undertaken at the time of the survey, levels of knowledge were high among the pupils studied, and compared favourably with levels found using the same questionnaire among San Franciscan pupils. Higher levels of knowledge were found among urban pupils and, although some sex differences in knowledge emerged, there was no consistent pattern in these. No school surveyed showed sufficient misinformation to warrant a systematic education programme.