The relationship between South African adolescents' knowledge and fear of AIDS and their attitudes toward people who have AIDS.

Abstract

Several studies point to the fear generated by AIDS in the community and to the fact that attitudes towards the disease and its sufferers are linked to the amount of accurate knowledge people have, especially towards transmission. In order to determine whether there was a correlation between 1) fear of AIDS and knowledge, 2) less fear and a positive attitude toward sufferers, and 3) knowledge of AIDS and a positive attitude toward sufferers, 25 male and 25 female adolescents (average age 17.55 years) were sampled from a predominately White, middle-class school in Pretoria, South Africa. Students completed a 20-item questionnaire evaluating their knowledge about the cause, transmission, and treatment of AIDS, irrational fears about AIDS, and attitudes toward people with AIDS. No significant Pearson correlations were found between knowledge of AIDS and fear scores or between knowledge and attitude scores. There was, however, a slightly significant correlation between fear scores and attitude scores. The only significant difference between males and females was between the knowledge scores (the males were more knowledgeable). No differences were found in fear or attitudes. Overall knowledge scores indicate that the students have considerable knowledge about AIDS, which refutes previous research.