College Students' Knowledge and Health Beliefs about AIDS: Implications for Education and Prevention

A questionnaire designed to measure the application of the dimensions of the Health Belief Model (HBM) to Aids prevention and to practicing safer sex was administered to 139 undergraduates aged 22 years and under. Students generally had good knowledge about the facts of Aids, which was consistent with other studies. We found an important difference between students' beliefs about practicing safer sex to prevent Aids depending on whether their level of knowledge was high or low. The HBM posits that all of its dimensions must be present in order for belief to be followed by action. However, students with low knowledge indicated that the perceived barriers to practicing safer sex were higher than did students with high knowledge about AIDS. These results suggest that special efforts need to be made to teach students with low knowledge more about AIDS and that the barriers to safer sex can and should be overcome. There were no differences between students known to be sexually active compared with those who may or may not have been sexually active. One explanation was a possibly high number of students in the group identified as "perhaps sexually active" who actually were sexually active. Similarly, there were no differences between college students who did or did not know someone with Aids, but this may have been due to the small number of students who did know such a person. Students' preferences for the format and methodology of Aids education also were presented. In general, the students preferred small-group discussions and formats such as movies or panel discussions where they could remain "anonymous." Physicians were perceived as the preferred source of Aids information.