Sexual Attitudes, Age, Sex and Romantic Commitment as Factors in the Level of HIV Awareness of Selected College Students

Abstract

As of January of 2023, over 110,000 documented HIV cases have been reported in the Philippines. According to the Department of Health, the rate of infection in 2023 is 22% higher than in 2022. In view of these reports, this study attempted to ascertain the level of HIV awareness of selected college students. It also explored their sexual attitudes, age, sex and presence of a romantic commitment as potential factors that could affect their level of HIV awareness. Fifty 2nd year students from a college in the Province of Rizal, Philippines volunteered to be the respondents. To assess their sexual attitudes, the Brief Sexual Attitude Scale (BSAS), a 23 item 5-point Likert scale instrument, which measures the 4 domains of permissiveness, birth control, communion and instrumentality was used. To assess their HIV awareness, a 29-item true or false researcher-made instrument was crafted based on the HIV facts stated in the UNAIDS website. The results found that with regards to sexual attitudes, the respondents moderately disagree to permissiveness, strongly agree to birth control, moderately agree to communion and are neutral to instrumentality. No significant difference was found between the male and female respondents concerning the 4 BSAS domains. Furthermore, there was also no significant difference between the respondents with and without romantic commitment concerning the 4 BSAS domains. Based on the scores obtained from the researcher-made instrument measuring the respondents’ level of HIV awareness, their level of awareness is only at 52.48%. A very statistically significant difference was found in the level of HIV awareness between the male and female respondents. In addition, it was established that the female respondents have a significantly higher HIV awareness than the male respondents. No significant difference was established between the level of HIV awareness of the respondents with or without romantic commitment. Furthermore, no significant relationship was found between the level of HIV awareness of the respondents and the 4 BSAS domains. However, a significant moderate inverse relationship between the respondents’ age and their level of HIV awareness was established. This implies that as the respondent’s age increases, his HIV awareness score moderately decreases and vice versa. Keywords: HIV, HIV awareness, sexual attitudes, Brief Sexual Attitudes Scale