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AIDS! what the teenagers knew

by Edward Arambewela

The seriousness of AIDS doesn't seem to have been properly understood yet by the younger generation in Sri Lanka.

So much so that some of them have even rejected the idea of sticking to one partner in marriage, as a preventive measure to AIDS.

This came up at the recently concluded WONCA (World Organisation of National Colleges and Academics of Family Medicine) at their annual sessions held in Colombo.

This issue was discussed based on the results of a AIDS awareness survey on a group of A/L students in Colombo schools, conducted by the Sri Jayawardenapura Medical Faulty.

According to the survey report submitted by the Jayawardenapura Medical Faculty survey team - 15 percent of the students had rejected a faithful monogamous relationship as a method of AIDS prevention.

The following is an extract from the survey report:

HIV/AIDS is known for its crippling effects on health and socio economic aspects in a community. Studies have shown that where health education has been used as an intervention among the adolescents the incidence of HIV/AIDS has decreased.

Thus the main objective of this study was to assess the level of knowledge about transmission and prevention among this particularly vulnerable age group.

705 Advanced Level students from eight Colombo schools were given a self-administered questionnaire, which consisted of 14 questions. The investigators corrected each paper using a marking scheme. MS Excel 2000 was used in analysis.

Average score obtained was 82 (range 37-100) indicating that the majority had a good knowledge. The students in Maths, Arts and Commerce streams had less knowledge than the science students. Those from mixed schools too fared badly. The level of knowledge also varied with the social background.

Seven students did not know that AIDS spreads through unprotected sex. 21% thought unprotected homosexual activities were safe. Hugging and respiratory droplets were thought to be unsafe by 11% and 16% respectively. 35% thought that the disease could be transmitted by the mosquito. 22% did not know that condoms are a preventive measure, 6% of them thought of oral contraceptive pills was a method of prevention while 15% students rejected a faithful monogamous relationship as a method of prevention.

A significant number of students seem to lack knowledge on vital areas related to transmission and prevention and this needs to be addressed before they leave school.

The team comprised W.H.M. Abeysekera, D.P.P. Collurage, Y.N.A.S. Suraweera, P.S.K. Dambakumbura.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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