A Study of First Year Students Attitude towards HIV and AIDS

Abstract

Introduction: Attitude towards HIV and AIDS has been a concern in a number of researches undertaken in the area of HIV and AIDS. Attitude towards HIV and AIDS has two dimensions mainly positive and negative that influence stigma and discrimination towards People Living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA). The objective of this paper is to determine students' attitude towards HIV and AIDS when they start university life. Method:The study has employed a longitudinal study design in which data was collected in two phases. This paper presents the results of phase I with the population of the study being all 1 st year Ardhi University undergraduate students 2011/12. A sample size of 625 students was determined by using Survey System Package available free on the internet. Stratified random sampling was employed whereby students were categorized into schools and selected proportionately by sex. Data was collected through literature review and questionnaires and analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software package version 20.0. Results:Results of the study reveal that a relatively high number of students exhibits negative attitude towards PLWHA and to other attitudinal indicators. Within gender, negative Attitude towards HIV and AIDS was noticeable in male compared to female though the difference was not statistically significant. Across schools, School of Architecture and Design (SADE) has a relatively high number of students with negative attitude towards HIV and AIDS of all schools and, generally, the difference in positive and negative attitudes across schools was statistically significant. Conclusions:Studies reviewed disclose negative attitude towards PLWHA in varying aspects at considerable levels. The present study also concludes that significant levels of stigma and discrimination against PLWHA still exist among students.

Predicción de actitud hacia personas con VIH/SIDA y hacerse prueba del VIH

“…Tras la revisión de investigaciones sobre actitud hacia PVVS y hacerse la prueba del VIH centradas en variables psicosociales y publicadas durante las dos últimas décadas, siete variables destacaron como correlatos o predictores significativos. Retomando las mismas, el modelo propuesto para predecir actitud hacia PVVS y hacerse la prueba del VIH incluye el sexo como predictor sociodemográfico (Dahlui et al, 2015;Kikwasi, Lukwale y Mwageni, 2017;Masoudnia, 2015;Tang et al, 2016), la orientación sexual (Boone et al, 2016) y tener amigos homosexuales (Burke et al, 2015;Knaak y Patten, 2016;Prati et al, 2016) como predictores relacionados con los grupos de identidad o pertenencia y experiencias vividas, la actitud hacia personas homosexuales (Suominen et al, 2015;Vaughn, Teeters, Sadler y Cronan, 2017) como otra actitud hacia un objeto relacionado, la religiosidad (Reyes, Varas y Martínez, 2015) como predictor ideológico (desde valores cristianos católicos o no católicos) y el autoritarismo de ala derecha (Rickles, Furtek, Malladi, Ng y Zhou, 2016) como predictor ideológico (de derechas) y de rasgo (rigidez autoritaria).…”

“…Al especificar el modelo, se espera que la actitud de rechazo hacia PVVS sea predicha por ser hombre (Dahlui et al, 2015;Kikwasi et al, 2017;Masoudnia, 2015;Tang et al, 2016), orientación heterosexual (Boone et al, 2016), no tener amigos homosexuales (Burke et al, 2015;Knaak y Patten, 2016;Prati et al, 2016), actitud de rechazo hacia personas homosexuales (Emlet et al, 2015) y mayor autoritarismo de ala derecha (Burgess et al, 2019;Rickles et al, 2016). Tener amistad con PVVS probablemente sea una variable problemática al aproximarse a una constante (0 = No), debido a que es una enfermedad de muy baja prevalencia poblacional.…”

Investigating the Attitude of Students of Tertiary Institutions towards HIV/AIDS: A Case Study of Ekiti State University, Local Government Area, Ekiti State, Nigeria

“…This study places a primary focus on attitudes due to its close association with stigma and discrimination. Various researchers have assessed attitudes, stigma, and discrimination using different indicators, revealing the existence of negative attitudes towards HIV and AIDS among respondents at different levels (Geraldine et al, 2017;and references therein). Various studies conducted by different authors have revealed attitudes towards HIV and AIDS at varying levels.…”