Efficacy of HIV/AIDS Related Educational Package on Awareness and High-Risk Behavior of Adolescent Students in Kathmandu Metropolitan City

Abstract

Introduction: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) are among the most complex health problems of the 21st century. Young people aged 15 - 24 years are the HIV/AIDS at risk group. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an educational interventional program on knowledge on HIV/AIDS among adolescent students of higher secondary school in Kathmandu, Nepal. Methods: The study was the pre test - post test experimental study design with an experimental and a control group conducted in the randomly selected eighteen higher secondary schools. The intervention, educational package on HIV/AIDS, was provided to all grade twelve students in the intervention group from 1st September, 2017 to 2nd January, 2018. In total, 321 from the intervention group, and 283 from the control enrolled at baseline and over 95% of these were followed up at posttest. The data were collected from self-administered questionnaires in English version and analyzed by using independence t-test and paired t-test. Results: Overall pretest knowledge of both intervention and control groups was comparable with 27.58 ± 4.05 and 28.53 ± 3.77 mean ± standard deviation respectively. But statistical analysis showed significant higher knowledge (P = 0.03) among control group. After the educational intervention, the mean knowledge score of control group increased by only 0.47, whereas the same score increased by 11.57 and reached 39.15 ± 3.7 in post-test for intervention group. The difference in post-test score was statistically highly significant (P < 0.001). The finding indicates that the educational intervention was effective in changing the HIV/AIDS knowledge of students of intervention group. The differences in pre- and post-test knowledge scores of both intervention and control groups were statistically significant with P-value of 0.000 and 0.003 respectively. The findings of sexual risk behavior showed that 6.7% of controls and 16.8% of intervention group students reported having sexual relations. Conclusion: Educational intervention was efficacious in improving awareness of adolescent students on HIV/AIDS. The study has also indicated that remarkable numbers of adolescents are practicing high risk behavior for HIV/AIDS like having early initiation sexual intercourse, multiple sex partners, using alcohol before intercourse etc. There is need to promote education program among higher secondary schools to multiply the effects of providing opportunities to equip students with factual information on HIV/AIDS.