Awareness of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and Its Influencial Factors among College Students in Universities Implementing "Red Ribbon in Colleges" Event across China / 中国医学科学院学报

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the college students'awareness of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and its influencial factors in universities implementing "Red Ribbon in Colleges" event.Methods A multistage random sampling method was used to select 2057 students from 8 universities. Among them,1977 students were surveyed by quantitative questionnaires and 80 students were interviewed qualitatively. SPSS 24.0 software was used for data processing and analysis.Results A total of 1977 students was investigated,among whom the overall awareness rate of AIDS-related knowledge was 88.21%. The awareness rate of the three major routes of AIDS transmission (i.e. sexual transmission,blood transmission,and mother-to-child transmission) were more than 90%,and the awareness rate of "Can mosquito bites spread AIDS" was lowest (72.99%). The awareness rate of AIDS-related knowledge was significantly higher among students who had attended the "Red Ribbon in Colleges" event (95.36%,P<0.001),followed by those who had received AIDS prevention education as a freshman (92.22%,P<0.001),had filled in AIDS prevention questionnaires (91.42%,P<0.001),and had attended other AIDS-related health education events in schools or colleges (91.36%,P<0.001),and the differences were statistically significant when compared with students who had not attended any of these events. Multivariate unconditional Logistic regression analysis showed that attending the "Red Ribbon in Colleges" event (OR=2.973,95%CI=1.684-5.249,P<0.001),receiving AIDS prevention education as a freshman (OR=2.944,95%CI=2.073-4.181,P<0.001),attending other AIDS-related health education in schools or colleges (OR=1.590,95%CI=1.141-2.217,P=0.006),majoring in engineering disciplines (OR=2.756,95%CI=1.846-4.114,P<0.001),junior students (OR=1.916,95%CI=1.216-3.020,P=0.005),living in central China (OR=1.868,95%CI=1.085-3.218,P=0.024),and living in northern China (OR=1.774,95%CI=1.159-2.716,P=0.008) were favourable factors for high awareness rate. Qualitative analysis indicated that students rated highly of the "Red Ribbon in Colleges" event.Conclusion The "Red Ribbon in Colleges" event and other AIDS education programs help to increase the college students'awareness of AIDS-related knowledge.