HIV/AIDS knowledge among first year MBBS, Nursing, Pharmacy students of a health university, India

To determine level of HIV/AIDS knowledge among first-year MBBS, nursing and pharmacy students of a health university.

A pre-designed, pre-tested, anonymous self-administered, semi-structured questionnaire was circulated among available 129, 53 and 55 first-year MBBS, nursing and pharmacy students during Oct' 09. Data entry, management and analysis were carried out using MS excel and software statistical package.

Out of the total 237 students, there were 123 (51.9%) female and 103 (44.0%) students from rural native place. A majority of students were able to correctly write the full form of AIDS (95.8%) in comparison to HIV (72.6%) and the difference between two terminologies were known to 87.6%, 81.1% and 70.9% of MBBS, nursing and pharmacy students, respectively. All four common routes of transmission of infection and methods of prevention were known to majority of the lot. However, injecting drug users (IDU) and truck driver as a risk category was correctly reported by 67.5% and 55.3% students, whereas 35.9% incorrectly mentioned that smoking is a risk factor for acquiring infection. A statistically significant (P <0.05) proportion of MBBS followed by nursing and pharmacy students were aware that infection neither spreads by social activities like handshake/playing nor by mosquito bite. However, low level was ascertained with regard to items related to non-curability of infection (57.4%) and availability of anti-retro viral therapy (27.4%).

Overall high level of knowledge was recorded in the present study with a difference noted among students in three professional streams.