Assessment of the impact of pharmacist-led face-to-face counselling on HIV/AIDS among school & college going students, and infected patients in south India

Abstract

Problem consideredOver the past decade HIV/AIDS infection has tremendously increased among young people aged 15–24 years in the developing countries like India. By keeping this in mind, pharmacist counselling could be an essential asset that has been associated with improved health outcomes among public and infected patients as well. AimTo assess the impact of pharmacist-led counselling on HIV/AIDS among school & college going students and infected patients. MethodsA prospective intervention survey was conducted by using the simple random sampling technique. A total of 509 participants were sampled i.e., post-secondary school students (98), college students (364), and infected patients (47) respectively and interviewed by the student pharmacist using a pre-designed, semi-structured questionnaire to assess their knowledge regarding HIV/AIDS pre and post-test respectively. Verbal consent from all the participants was obtained before initiating the study. Responses were scored, analyzed and mean score and percentage were used to determine the level of knowledge pre and post-test. ResultsOf the total 509 survey participants, 246 (48.3%) were males, and 263 (51.7%) were females with a mean age and SD of 24.59 years ± 0.54. The study results noticed that the study participants, especially school students and infected patients were not attentive and conscious about the HIV/AIDS. ConclusionThe study results infer that there is an immense need for health education and prevention awareness camps for HIV/AIDS among school & college going students as well as the infected patients in south India.