The female condom: knowledge, attitude,and willingness to use. The first Italian study.

Women account for nearly half the people living with HIV worldwide. This situation makes it necessary to improve prevention actions targeting women: the female condom is a good option. The study was conducted, the first in Italy, in a public AIDS Center on a sample of 162 participants (66.7% female, 33.3% men) who requested the HIV test. The objectives were: assess the current knowledge of the female condom; collect information on opinions, impressions and willingness to use the female condom. Participants were administered a Lickert-scale questionnaire after post-test counselling. The results are in line with international studies and show an early positive response, characterized by interest and openness to innovation, followed by resisting to use the female condom.

[Youth and HIV: information campaigns by and for adolescents]. / Adolescenti e HIV. Le campagne informative dei giovani per i giovani.

This article describes a pilot project carried out in collaboration between the Istituto Superiore di Sanita and the Azienda Sanitaria Locale Roma E without any specific funding. The aim was to take a group of adolescents and provide them with a grounding in both HIV/AIDS infection and social communication, and with the instruments necessary to develop an informative campaign with other adolescents as the target group. The project was divided into three phases: sessions for raising levels of HIV/AIDS information and awareness involving 702 secondary school students; workshops to provide 120 selected students with communication and advertising know-how, to allow them to develop an HIV/AIDS infection information campaign targeted at their peers; a final event for the presentation of the students' findings. Prevention was the focus of the adolescents' resulting products, with particular attention to condoms as means of protection. The target population was judged as best influenced by channels such as posters and television ads, and the resulting messages were cartoon based, both ironic and fun yet accompanied by strong and direct statements designed to shock the viewer. The methods used in the project turned out to be particularly suitable for giving importance to the input of the participants who went from being publicity targets to developers.

[Access to public health services and HIV prevention: experimentation of participated planning with adolescents]. / Accesso ai servizi pubblici e prevenzione dell'infezione da HIV: un'esperienza di progettazione partecipata con gli adolescenti.

The present study reports strategies and approaches found by adolescents through participated planning aiming at facilitating access of adolescents to HIV prevention services. Meetings and focus groups were carried out in secondary schools to collect information on attitudes, perceptions and opinions of adolescents on the way they use health services, the factors which are seen as obstacles to access, and the best strategies to overcome such obstacles. Analysis of the information gathered was carried out using content analysis. Among other results gathered it was evident that the social representation of AIDS was the major factor which underlay the decision of adolescents to avoid these specific health services and that taking part in participated planning allowed them to feel less distant to this illness which they initially felt did not concern them.