Promoting HIV/AIDS prevention among older African americans adults

The primary purpose is to investigate the attitudes, knowledge and beliefs of African American over 50 years of age in the area of HIV/AIDS. The study will utilize a mixed method design consisting of self-reporting surveys and focus group. A total of 194 African Americans 50 years and over participated in the study. Participants for the study were recruited from local social and civic community organizations. Participants responses were measure based responses to several inventories, scales and questionnaires including, the Expressions of Spirituality Inventory; the General Perceived Self Efficacy Scale; the HIV Knowledge Questionnaire; the AIDS Health Belief Scale, a Sexual Behavior Questionnaire, and a basic demographic survey. The preliminary data have showed that HIV knowledge was significantly negatively correlated with perceived severity (r=-.291, p<.000) and perceived barriers (r=-229), p<.004). Perceived severity was significantly positively correlated to benefits (r=.383, p<.000) and barrier (r=.385, p<.000). Participants were divided into three groups according to their age (Group 1: 50 to 60 years; Group 2: 61 to 70 years; Group 3: 71 and above). There was a statistically significant difference at the p < .05 level in HIV knowledge scores for the three age groups: F (2, 174) = 5.6, p = .000. The focus group yielded two key themes: lack of perceived susceptibility which concurs with the survey findings, in that 45.6% of participants perceived their chances of becoming infected with AIDS very unlikely; and lack of knowledge about HIV/AIDS which was corroborated by scores on the HIV Knowledge questionnaire wherein 47.1% of participants answered less than 60% of the HIV knowledge questions correctly.