Attitude towards Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and its determining factors: A community survey in rural and slum areas in India.

ABSTRACT

This survey was conducted to find out attitude of persons living in villages and slum areas of Chandigarh towards Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and evaluate its determining factors. Methods - Households were selected from 5 villages and 5 slum areas by stratified random sampling. Trained field workers studied 2992 persons. A specially designed performa was administered to assess awareness, knowledge, and attitude about Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Result - Only 26.6% of study population had heard of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Positive attitude towards Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome patients’ movement in community, work, school and continuing friendship was found. Majority knew about four major routes of transmission and basic preventive measures. A negative correlation was found between knowledge & attitude scores. On stepwise regression analysis, sex, education and marital status contributed to the variance with attitude as dependent variable. Conclusion – Majority of subjects held positive attitudes towards Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Education and marital status determined attitudes.