Description

This survey investigates the basic knowledge
about HIV/AIDS with emphasis on exploring the
knowledge of the potential routes of HIV
transmission among seven-hundred and twenty-six
high school (12th grade) pupils in Jerash governorate,
Northern Jordan. A self-administered questionnaire
concerning knowledge about AIDS and the potential
modes of HIV transmission was completed by
participating students.
Results showed that the basic knowledge of these
high school students on AIDS was just satisfactory:
84.2% of them knew that AIDS is caused by a virus
and 79.6% of them accurately knew that there is a
blood test for the diagnosis of HIV/AIDS. Female
students were significantly more knowledgeable than
their peers male students (P value <0.01). However,
the majority still have many misconceptions about the
different modes of HIV transmission and their
knowledge on this aspect is poor to very poor: we
found that between 47.2% and 70.7% of these pupils
had erroneous views about transmission routes of
HIV, which included casual contact such as social
kissing, shaking hands, coughing and sneezing,
sharing food and swimming pools with HIV-infected
persons. One of the most striking misconceptions,
observed in this survey, was that almost three fourths
(70.7%) of respondents thought that blood donation
was a cause of transmission of HIV to the blood
donor. These misconceptions are alarming and need
to be urgently addressed. Implications of these
findings for future research and provision of
appropriate health education programs on
HIV/AIDS for school health programs, in Jordan,
are discussed.