Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Regarding HIV/AIDS Among adolescent School Students in Nepal –A cross-sectional study

Objective: To measure the knowledge, attitude and behaviour of adolescents regarding HIV and AIDS and their sexual behaviours brought about by parents' educational and occupational status, exposure to IEC media, credit hours of health education attended in schools and other socio-cultural and demographic variables.

Methods: A cross sectional study among students of class 9 to 12 from 35 schools of 30 districts across the country was conducted using multistage random sampling technique. 3,500 students who voluntarily participated were interviewed with self-administered and structured questionnaire between September-October, 2010. Data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics to see the prevalence and associations with the variables of interests. Results: Around 93% of the respondents had correct knowledge. Higher parental education and occupation are significantly associated with correct knowledge and vice-versa (p<0.05). Knowledge among higher grade students, upper caste groups and Hindu population is almost universal. Quite contrarily, exposure to IEC media and increased credit hours of health education doesn't have significant effect on knowledge (p=0.719). Rural students had lower level of knowledge than urban students. However, more urban students (38%) had unsafe sexual intercourse than rural students (11%) and are statistically significant. Exposure to media, strong economic status and health education do not pose significant effect on safe sexual practice and are susceptible to HIV and AIDS (p=0.538). Conclusions: The current socio-economic, social and educational development is not playing a positive role to create positive knowledge, practice and attitudes.