AIDS knowledge and condom use in a birth cohort of 16 year olds

The aims of this study were to examine levels of AIDS knowledge and contraceptive practices in a birth cohort of 16 year old Christchurch born children.

The study was based on the birth cohort of young people participating in the Christchurch Health and Development Study. At age 16 years 953 subjects were questioned about: (a) levels of AIDS knowledge using a 16 item AIDS knowledge questionnaire; (b) rates of sexual activity; (c) patterns of contraceptive use.

Members of this cohort had a generally very high knowledge of AIDS with 92% of the sample responding correctly to 14 or more of the 16 AIDS knowledge questions. Just over a quarter of this sample were sexually active during their 16th year and it was estimated that condoms were used in 59% of all sexual acts reported by sample members. There was a clear tendency for rates of condom use to decline with increasing sexual experience with this decline being due to the fact that as teenagers become more sexually experienced condoms were progressively replaced by other contraceptive methods. Those with high levels of AIDS knowledge used condoms at a higher rate of those with low levels of AIDS knowledge even when due allowance was made for the frequency of sexual activity and other potentially confounding factors.

The results of this study suggest that publicity and education about AIDS has been successful in producing high levels of knowledge about this condition in this cohort. However, this knowledge was not directly translated into high levels of condom use largely as a result of the fact that as teenagers became increasingly sexually experienced there was a tendency for condom use to be replaced by other methods of contraception and notably the contraceptive pill.