HIV/AIDS And Knowledge, Attitudes, And Behavior Changes In College Students

China is now experiencing serious, localized HIV epidemics. Stigma has become the major obstacle to government’s vigorous systematic studies on college students’ level of knowledge and stigma of HIV/AIDS. The purpose of this study were to examine the relationships among HIV knowledge levels and attitudes or behavior change intention in the Chinese college population. The objectives of this study were to develop an intervention designed to positively impact HIV knowledge, attitudes and behavior change intension.A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. A stratified sampling method was used to select participants for the study from one college. This questionnaire was administered to Chinese college students. Items on the questionnaire examined HIV knowledge, attitudes, behavior change intention, and so on. Descriptive statistics were used to present basic information of respondents. Cross-tabulation was used to determine an association between a number of independent variables and dependent variables. Correlation analysis was examined to highlight factors that are associated with general attitudes towards HIV.The students identified mass media as their most important source of information about HIV. There were many misconceptions about the knowledge of transmission, Mosquito bites (32.6%), public toilets (60.6%), cough and sneeze (69.2%) were incorrectly identified as routes of transmission. Most of the students wanted to know more about HIV. In this study, knowledge level was associated with student’s attitudes and behavior change intention.The findings reveal important barriers to de-stigmatize HIV and suggest strategies to reduce stigma and discrimination.