Moral Development,HIV/AIDS Knowledge,and Attitude toward HIV/AIDS among Counseling Students in the United States

People living with HIV/AIDS will likely require services from mental health professionals to address the complex psychosocial effects of the illness. In the United States, counseling students are not likely to be well prepared to serve clients affected by HIV/AIDS, and little is known about their HIV-related knowledge and attitudes. The present study assessed the moral development, HIV/AIDS knowledge, and attitudes toward HIV/AIDS among a national sample of counseling students in the United States. Results indicated that students held biases toward people living with HIV/AIDS and that their attitudes toward HIV/AIDS were inversely related to their level of moral development.     

Risky Business: South African youths and HIV/AIDS prevention

Behavior change is the only available means of curtailing new HIV infections in South Africa. This study investigated the relationship between sexual risk taking and attitudes to AIDS precautions. The participants were about 25% white, about 30% colored/mixed blood and 45% black in their second year in polytechnics (413 females and 402 males). Participants responded to the 40-item HIV-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviors. Data indicated that young women showed more positive attitudes to AIDS precautions than young men (reflecting in part the stereotypic negative attitudes of young men toward condoms). In general, most males and females were found to have less knowledge about HIV transmission and less favorable attitudes toward safe sex behavior than their counterparts in the west. Also young men with more partners expressed more fatalistic attitudes toward AIDS. The possibility that a finergrained multivariate analysis of attitudes to AIDS and safe-sex behaviour is something that needs to be taken seriously in future research, however.     

The Power of Perspective: Teaching Social Policy with Documentary Film

AIDS has challenged the social work community to be responsive to work with individuals who are facing death and families and significant others who are undergoing feelings of loss and grief. This article discusses teaching content and methodology in each of three integrated sessions that go beyond the traditional, didactic approach to the topic of death in a graduate social work practice course. Students examine their attitudes and reactions to death and dying and develop relevant knowledge, skills and coping behavior for work with persons with AIDS, their lovers and families.     

HIV/AIDS knowledge, attitudes, and risk-behaviors among African-American and Caribbean college women

The HIV/AIDS knowledge, attitudes, and sexualrisk-taking behaviors of a sample ofAfrican-American and Caribbean college wereinvestigated. The study also explored therelationship between the women's self-esteem,self-efficacy, sexual communication, andreligiosity and their HIV knowledge, attitudes,and risk behaviors. Findings revealed thatwhile both groups of women were fairlyknowledgeable about HIV/AIDS transmission andprevention, their sexual risk-taking behaviorswere still relatively high. TheAfrican-American women were more knowledgeableabout HIV/AIDS than were the Caribbean women. Also, the African-American women engaged insignificantly fewer sexual risk-takingbehaviors than their Caribbean femalecounterparts. No significant cultural groupdifferences emerged on attitudes towardHIV/AIDS as a disease, HIV infected persons,and AIDS-related issues. A number ofsignificant correlations were found. The studyconcludes that HIV/AIDS counseling andprevention approaches that are ethnic,cultural, and gender appropriate are vital forincreasing both cognitive and behavioralchanges in culturally diverse young women.     

Pre‐service Teachers’ Subject Knowledge of and Attitudes about Radioactivity and Ionising Radiation

This study focussed on secondary school (11–18 years) pre‐service teachers’ (n = 73) knowledge of and attitudes towards risks associated with alpha, beta, and gamma radiations. A multi‐method approach was used with physics, chemistry, biology, and history graduates undertaking the one‐year initial teacher training, Post Graduate Certificate in Education course at a university in central England. A novel research tool, involving interviews about real concrete contexts and first‐hand data collection with radioactive sources, was employed to gain insights into a sub‐set of the sample (n = 12) of pre‐service teachers’ subject knowledge of and attitudes towards risk. The subject knowledge of all the pre‐service teachers was also measured using a Certainty of Response Index instrument; multiple‐choice questions with associated confidence indicators. Although the physicists displayed the higher levels of knowledge, they also demonstrated limitations in their knowledge and held misconceptions such as irradiation being confused with contamination. Physics graduates hold more rational attitudes and a greater willingness to accept risk while the attitudes of graduates in the other subject disciplines are more disparate. These findings raise questions about the extent to which pre‐service science and history teachers have the knowledge necessary to teach this topic. The article concludes with discussion of the implications these findings have for initial teacher training, continuing professional development needs for teachers already in the profession, and curriculum developers.     

Knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about HIV/AIDS among Hindu students from a government women's college of South India

The purpose of the study was to determine the attitudes of Hindu students from a government women's college of South India toward people with AIDS, to assess their beliefs about HIV/AIDS, to determine their knowledge level about HIV/AIDS and to determine how they gain information about HIV/AIDS. The sample consisted of four hundred female students at a government funded Women's University in Southern India who participated in an AIDS survey research project. Participants completed a survey asking about their knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about HIV/AIDS. Results indicated that a majority of the participants learned about HIV/AIDS from reading material while some learned about HIV/AIDS from school classes, and only a few learned from family members. Thirty-nine percent had never communicated to any one about HIV/AIDS. The results indicated that the majority of Indian women in this study did not know about explicit sexual behaviors which transmit the virus. The study also showed that those Indian women university students, by and large, are accepting of people with AIDS but still have fears of getting HIV/AIDS. This data suggest a need to increase educational efforts at the university. It was suggested that counselors take responsibility for helping this population of Indian women become self advocates, particularly in a society which permits men to have multiple sexual relationships. Educators and counselors working with this population must initiate programs that impart accurate and specific knowledge to these female college students and begin to address the multiple psychosocial issues related to HIV/AIDS.     

Globalization,public policy,and ‘knowledge gap’: Ethiopian youth and the HIV/AIDS pandemic

Set against trans‐ or supra‐national policy initiatives which have framed the HIV/AIDS pandemic as in part a pedagogical issue, this paper critically explores local understandings of sexual practices (generally) as well as of HIV/AIDS (more specifically) among young people in the sub‐Saharan African country of Ethiopia. Ethiopia has the third largest number of HIV/AIDS infections in the world, behind only South Africa and India. Like many countries dealing with this pandemic, the Ethiopian government has articulated its response to a broader set of global presses, including those around information and education. Such responses, we will argue, are helpful but have important limitations. As this study shows, knowledge about safer sex practices and the dangers of HIV/AIDS are by now well known among many Ethiopian youth. Yet, this knowledge does not always effect behavioral change. Taking condom use as a key exemplar, we will look at how Ethiopian youth narrate their own sexual experiences, conduct, and practices. Deeply informed by the work of Pierre Bourdieu, we look to open new ‘thinking tools’ for a range of actors addressing this global pandemic in situated contexts. In particular, we challenge the ‘pedagogical subject’ – a subject lacking key information – interpolated into many of these policies. We highlight, instead, new disjunctures between emergent discourses around sex and sexuality as well as long‐standing, conservative attitudes toward gender.     

对在校大学生艾滋病宣传教育效果的调查研究

随着艾滋病在我国的蔓延,经性传播感染艾滋病病毒的高学历人群比例显著增加,在校大学生应该成为预防艾滋病重点人群.本文通过对广东6所高校在校大学生的问卷调查发现:在校大学生的艾滋病相关知识认知度偏低,艾滋病相关态度较为积极,艾滋病相关行为风险性较高;同时由于在校大学生对艾滋病的知识与态度具有显著相关性,且不同的宣传途径对相关的知识、态度、行为的影响不同;因此艾滋病预防教育需要学校、媒体、社会等多方面的配合,政府在其中应起协调和促进作用.     

HIV/AIDS educators: The challenges and issues for Namibian bachelor of education students

The Life Skills course is offered to Namibian students in grades eight through twelve. It includes lessons on HIV/AIDS, imparting information and equipping them with the necessary psycho-social skills to assist in reducing the risk of becoming infected. Teachers are the impetus for the success of the course. As such, research was undertaken to understand the knowledge, attitudes, and concerns of Namibian Bachelor of Education students in order to be effective HIV/AIDS educators. Findings determine a gap in knowledge about HIV/AIDS-related issues. Moreover, many students indicated reluctance and a lack of self-efficacy to properly implement HIV/AIDS education.     

Child abuse and AIDS-related knowledge, attitudes and behavior among adolescents in Zambia

OBJECTIVE: To research the correlation between physical and sexual abuse by family members and AIDS-related knowledge, attitudes, self-efficacy and behavior among urban and rural adolescents in Zambia. SAMPLE: The sample comprises 3,360 adolescents, aged 10-19, from urban and rural Zambia; 2,160 of them attended school, while 1,200 of them did not. MEASURES: Standardized scales were utilized to assess AIDS-related knowledge, attitudes, and self-efficacy. In addition, the adolescents reported the extent of their engagement in various high-risk behaviors and their lifetime experience of being sexually or physically abused. RESULTS: As the level of abuse experienced by the adolescents increased, their level of knowledge about HIV/AIDS, tendency to hold positive attitudes toward prevention, and level of self-efficacy regarding HIV/AIDS prevention decreased. Most importantly, when controlling for socio-demographic variables, findings indicate that past abuse was a key factor predicting participation in high-risk behaviors associated with HIV infection. CONCLUSION: Physical and sexual abuse of adolescents in Zambia is significantly related to HIV risk behaviors. Future studies should investigate which factors mediate between the experience of abuse and the tendency to engage in risky behaviors.     

健康与污名——一项关于高校学生针对艾滋病患者态度的定量研究

自1985年我国发现第一例艾滋病病例以来,艾滋病患者长期处于社会排斥与社会隔离之中,他们饱受歧视与压抑,成为丧失部分权利和地位的"身份受损"群体——污名群体.本研究对北京市某高校部分学生进行了抽样调查,认为对艾滋病知识的掌握、成长阶段以及影响性知识、艾滋病知识获取的主客观因素显著干预高校学生对于艾滋病患者的态度,并指出艾滋病的"内部可控性"和"消极符号化含义"对延续艾滋病患者群体污名化处境具有负面作用.     

AIDS Prevention for Adolescents at Risk

This paper describes a training program aimed at preparing 14 MSW students to teach AIDS prevention to adolescents at risk of HIV infection (i.e., increase knowledge, alter attitudes and teach risk-reduction behaviors). The majority of the students perceived this training not only as helpful in preparing them for the task at hand, but also in improving their overall social work skills and their chances to get a social work job in the future. In this paper, we also discuss problems related to AIDS prevention that arose during the training, such as rape and risk-reduction precautions and whether or not AIDS counselors should recommend taking the AIDS test.     

UNESCO艾滋病预防教育策略初探

艾滋病已成为危害人类社会的国际问题.到目前为止,预防教育是解决艾滋病问题最为有效的方法.联合国教科文组织提出艾滋病预防教育的目的是增进人们对艾滋病传播和预防的知识、意识、技能,形成和树立正确的态度和价值观念,减少艾滋病的传染,减轻艾滋病对社会造成的影响,同时缓解艾滋病对教育系统带来的压力.本文介绍了UNESCO在全球性和地区性两个层面实施艾滋病预防教育的策略,并讨论了这些策略的意义.     

HIV/AIDS Education for Counselors: Efficacy of Training

This article discusses the efficacy of an intensive model of HIV/AIDS counselor training. Positive changes in knowledge and attitudes were reported at the posttraining stage and were sustained over time.     

HEALTH CARE EDUCATORS’ KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDES REGARDING SEXUALITY IN THE AGED

Health care providers’ knowledge of and attitudes toward sexuality in older adults may have an impact on the overall quality of care they provide to older clients. One place to begin improving the knowledge and attitudes of health care professionals may be health care educators. If educators have accurate knowledge and positive attitudes, they can help their students acquire accurate knowledge and develop positive attitudes. Forty‐two health care educators in a large community college completed a sexuality knowledge and attitude scale. The study attempted to determine the extent of the educators’ knowledge of sexuality in the aged, their attitudes toward it, the relationship between sexual knowledge and attitudes, and the relationship of knowledge and attitudes to certain personal / demographic variables and professional / experiential factors. The results indicated that the health care educators had limited knowledge regarding aged sexuality but held positive attitudes toward it. No significant relationship was found between knowledge and attitudes. Older health care educators and educators who had participated in continuing education related to sexuality possessed more knowledge about aged sexuality. Educators who rated themselves as more religious held more restrictive attitudes.     

STAFF AND ELDERLY KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDES TOWARD ELDERLY SEXUALITY

This study compared staff and elderly knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to sexual expression by elderly persons in a long‐term care setting. Volunteers (N = 194) responded agree or disagree to 159 items. Significant differences were observed between the staff and elderly responses on 36 items. Areas of greatest differences involved knowledge and attitudes about consensual sex and sexual abuse, issues related to family attitudes toward remarriage and sexual expression, and age‐related changes and health problems related to sexuality. Items related to masturbation received the greatest percentage of no response. The staff had significantly higher total scores as compared to the elderly reflecting more knowledge, positive attitudes, and support for more proactive responses toward elderly sexuality. Findings have major implications for staff training in long‐term care settings.     

An innovative concept map approach for improving students' learning performance with an instant feedback mechanism

Concept maps have been widely employed for helping students organise their knowledge as well as evaluating their knowledge structures in a wide range of subject matters. Although researchers have recognised concept maps as being an important educational tool, past experiences have also revealed the difficulty of evaluating the correctness of a concept map. It usually takes days or weeks for teachers to manually evaluate the concept maps developed by students; consequently, the students cannot receive timely feedback from the teachers, which not only affects their learning schedules, but also significantly influences the students' learning achievements. In this paper, a computer‐based concept map‐oriented learning strategy with real‐time assessment and feedback is proposed in order to cope with the problems mentioned above. Our approach provides immediate evaluation of concept maps and gives also real‐time feedback to the students. An experiment has been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of this new strategy in comparison with the conventional computer‐based concept map approach. It is found that our innovative approach can be significantly beneficial to promote learning achievements as well as the learning attitudes of students.     

Student‐centered integrated anatomy resource sessions at Alfaisal University

Alfaisal University is a new medical school in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that matriculates eligible students directly from high school and requires them to participate in a hybrid problem‐based learning (PBL) curriculum. PBL is a well‐established student‐centered approach, and the authors have sought to examine if a student‐centered, integrated approach to learn human structures leads to positive perceptions of learning outcomes. Ten students were divided into four groups to rotate through wet and dry laboratory stations (integrated resource sessions, IRSs) that engaged them in imaging techniques, embryology, histology, gross anatomy (dissections and prosections), surface anatomy, and self‐directed learning questions. All IRSs were primarily directed by students. During two second‐semester organ system blocks, forty students responded to a structured questionnaire designed to poll students' perceptions of changes in their knowledge, skills, and attitudes as a result of IRS. The majority (60%) of students felt that the student‐centered approach to learning enhanced their medical knowledge. Most students also felt that the IRS approach was advantageous for formulating clear learning objectives (55%) and in preparing for examinations (65%). Despite their positive feelings toward IRS, students did not view this learning approach as an adequate replacement for the knowledge gained from lectures and textbooks. Students' performance on objective structured practical examinations improved significantly for the two curricular blocks that included IRS compared with earlier non‐IRS blocks. A student‐centered approach to teach human structure in a hybrid PBL curriculum may enhance understanding of the basic sciences in first‐year medical students. Anat Sci Educ 3:272–275, 2010. © 2010 American Association of Anatomists.     

Evaluation of a school‐based sex education programme delivered to Grade Nine students in Canada

The effectiveness of a multidimensional Canadian sex education programme was evaluated using 240 Grade Nine students. The intervention was offered by representatives from various community groups and involved instructional classes on anatomy/physiology of the reproductive system and sexually transmitted infections, a video and group discussion on healthy relationships, a form of ‘peer education’ and discussion on teen pregnancy and HIV/AIDS, as well as a parent workshop and newsletter on teen sexuality. Respondents in the intervention and control groups completed a self‐administered questionnaire at baseline and one month after the programme. Compared with the control group, students in the intervention group showed positive changes in the areas of knowledge, sex‐role attitudes, sexual interaction values, and the perception that birth control is important. These results suggest that a collaborative effort of outside professionals from various community organisations and involvement of ‘peer educators’ to provide sexual health education in Grade Nine high school classes may be a useful strategy.     

Counselor Education on Lesbian,Gay, and Bisexual Issues: Comparing Information and Attitude Exploration

The authors compared the effects of information‐based and attitude‐based interventions on counselor trainees' knowledge about and attitudes toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients. Analyses of variance indicated that providing information yielded higher knowledge levels than did not providing information and that the exploration of attitudes led to reporting more negative attitudes than did not exploring attitudes. The implications of the findings for counselor education and future research are discussed.