AIDS education in Tanzania: promoting risk reduction among primary school children.

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to test the effects of an education program in Tanzania designed to reduce children's risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and to improve their tolerance of and care for people with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). METHODS: A randomized controlled community trial including baseline and 12-month follow-up surveys was employed. Public primary schools in the Arusha and Kilimanjaro regions of Tanzania were stratified according to location and randomly assigned to intervention (n = 6) or comparison (n = 12) conditions. Of the 1063 sixth-grade students (average age: 13.6 years) who participated at baseline, 814 participated in the follow-up survey. RESULTS: At follow-up, statistically significant effects favoring the intervention group were observed for exposure to AIDS information and communication, AIDS knowledge, attitudes toward people with AIDS, and subjective norms and behavioral intentions toward having sexual intercourse. A consistent positive but nonsignificant trend was seen for attitudes toward having sexual intercourse and for initiation of sexual intercourse during the previous year (7% vs 17%). CONCLUSIONS: It is feasible and effective to train local teachers and health workers to provide HIV/AIDS education to Tanzanian primary school children.

The effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of behavioural interventions for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections in young people aged 13–19: a systematic review and economic evaluation

“…Religious affiliation was only reported by three studies, in which the samples comprised a mixture of Catholics, Protestants or Muslims. 64,67,68 Only one study reported whether or not the young people had ever been considered as offenders; 61 in this study, 62% and 57% of the intervention and comparison groups, respectively, had offended. The respective figures for currently being on probation were 53% and 49%.…”

“…62 Twelve of the RCTs were cluster trials, 11 of which randomly allocated schools, with one allocating school districts. Six of the twelve studies did not provide details of the randomisation process, [63][64][65][66][67]69 although it should be noted that Roberto and colleagues 66 only involved two schools. Of the remaining six studies, the process of Zimmerman and colleagues 71 involved pairing clusters, Coyle and colleagues 58 ranked and paired clusters, whilst Coyle and colleagues, 61 Stephenson and colleagues, 50 and Borgia and colleagues 51 had used processes that involved stratifying or matching clusters.…”

“…Although not always clear from the descriptions provided, seven studies mentioned risk reduction only and a further five studies aimed at both risk reduction and delayed sexual intercourse. Only one study, Klepp and colleagues, 64 focused solely on delayed initiation of sex. Two studies were not clear.…”

“…One study 64 did not report an overall figure for the proportion of the participants who were sexually active at baseline. Instead this was reported separately for boys and girls, which indicated a large difference between sexual experience according to gender (50.8% of boys had ever had sex versus 10.4% of girls).…”

“…50,64 The locations of the remaining studies were either unclear 67,68 or not stated. 70 Five studies collected data on drug use, 43,51,61,62,65 but only one suggested levels of use to be problematic.…”