Knowledge, Information Needs and Risk Perception about HIV and Sexually Transmitted Diseases after an Education Intervention on Italian High School and University Students.

Antonella Zizza,Virginia Recchia,Marcello Guido,Federico Banchelli,Andrea Tinelli,Pierfrancesco Grima

doi:10.3390/ijerph18042069

Abstract

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among adolescents and young people represent a significant public health problem that generates a pressing requirement of effective evidence-based education to promote primary and secondary prevention. The objective of the study is to evaluate how knowledge, information needs, and risk perception about HIV and STDs can change after targeted education interventions for students. A total of 436 subjects aged 15–24 attending high school (134 biomedical and 96 non-biomedical fields) and university courses (104 scientific and 102 non-scientific disciplines) were enrolled to respond to a questionnaire before and after the intervention. An improvement in knowledge was found in all groups, with statistically significant knowledge score differences between the four groups in 60% of the items. More than 94% of the students consider it useful to promote information on these issues. Receiving this information generated awareness and safety in more than 85% of high-school students and 93% of University students. Students widely perceived a great risk being infected with HIV/STDs, although pregnancy was seen as a more hazardous consequence of unprotected sex. This study shows that educational interventions are effective in improving knowledge, apart from findings about key knowledge topics, information needs, and risk perception, which provide significant insights to design future targeted education programs.

Highlights

A range between 71.2% (G3) and 88.8% (G1) of students was Catholic, about 40% of teenagers were engaged, while the rate of university students who were engaged varied between 57.8% (G4) and 60.6% (G3)
More than 94% of students of the Group 1 (G1) and Group 2 (G2) groups, and 100% of Group 3 (G3) and Group 4 (G4), found it useful to promote information on these issues
The study results showed that knowledge about some aspects of HIV and other

Summary

Introduction

Transmitted diseases (STDs) among adolescents and young people represent a huge problem, which requires effective interventions for primary and secondary prevention [1]. STDs mostly occur in developing countries, especially in the African region [2], the trend continues to increase even in industrialized countries [3,4]. Over 100 million new STDs, excluding HIV, occur every year among people under 25 years of age, and globally, more than half of subjects newly infected by HIV are young people aged 15–24 [5]. The risk of infection in adolescence or early adulthood is even higher due to a greater anatomical susceptibility to these diseases [6].

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Discussion

Conclusion