First Year University Students’ Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Towards HIV/AIDS

Abstract

The main purpose of the study was to investigate first year students’ knowledge, attitude, and practices towards HIV/AIDS. In achieving this objective, the descriptive research design was adopted. The study participants comprised 249 level 100 students. A questionnaire developed by Carey and Schroder (2002) was used to collect data on students’ HIV/AIDS knowledge. A researcher-designed instrument was used to collect data on students’ attitudes towards people living with HIV/AIDS and practices regarding HIV/AIDS. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used for the analyses. The findings of the study revealed that the respondents’ knowledge level on HIV/AIDS was low and their practices regarding the disease were also poor. However, the respondents had positive attitudes towards people living with HIV/AIDS. The study recommends HIV/AIDS education course should be incorporated into the university’s curriculum to help increase students’ knowledge on HIV/AIDS and also enhance their practices.