RESUMEN
This study is the first step towards establishing a knowledge base to help health educators towards their goal of combating the spread of HIV/AIDS in Kuwait. Six hundreds primary health care clinic attendees from 15 years of age and above in two governments of Kuwait completed the questionnaire during July 2006 - January 2007. Collected data included demographic characteristics, knowledge about HIV/AIDS and its modes of transmission, sources of information and attitudes towards the disease. Knowledge were scored and accordingly were categorized as good and poor. Simple description of collected data was followed by analysis of factors that may affect knowledge score. The findings indicated that the respondents had a fairly good to excellent knowledge about AIDS. The correct answers ranged from 35.5% to about 98.2%. Concerning the source of information, mass media was the main source of information among higher proportion of those with good knowledge score. Negative attitudes towards individuals who have contracted HIV were highly prevalent in the studied sample particularly regarding patients isolation and ending relationship with a friend infected with HIV/AIDS. However, positive attitudes were observed regarding testing for HIV/AIDS before marriage, informing others from HIV positive cases and teaching the disease to high school students. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that married and highly educated participants and those who got information from mass media were more liable to have good knowledge. Although participants have fairly good knowledge they have mainly negative attitudes towards AIDS and people with AIDS. Mass media were the main source of information. Such findings suggest that health educational programs should be encouraged and these might have the potential role to limit the emergence of HIV/AIDS epidemic in Kuwait