Atul Vijay 1 , Naresh Rathod 2
India bears a large burden of HIV/AIDS on globe. Major weapons against HIV/AIDS are treatment which is not curative, vaccine which is far from reality and accurate & adequate information about the disease which is practically acceptable and cost effective way of prevention in form of social vaccine and is a good tool for HIV/AIDS in developing countries like India. In India there is inadequate & inaccurate knowledge about the disease in general population. AIM In present study we tried to analyze the knowledge & awareness about HIV/AIDS in clients attending the STI clinic at Jhalawar Hospital and Medical College at south east part of Rajasthan, India. MATERIAL & METHODS We assessed 500 clients at STI clinic by using a predesigned questionnaire which gathers their knowledge regarding HIV/AIDS. All the clients above the age of 18 years who attended the STI clinic were enrolled for the study voluntarily. Participants were finally assessed as good/poor or unaware according to their level of knowledge. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS SPSS version 20.0 (trial) was used to analyze all the data. Chi square test was used to find association between knowledge and their literacy level & occupation. RESULTS 142(28.4%) of the participants had never heard about HIV/AIDS among them females were significantly more than males. Both low level of literacy and unemployment or house wives were associated with unawareness about HIV/AIDS. For the 358(71.6%) participants who had heard about HIV/AIDS, mass media was the main source of information (53.07%) in which television contributes the major part, followed by friends and colleagues (24.02%). While the knowledge about HIV transmission and prevention was good but the extent of misconceptions was also high (64.8%). CONCLUSION Our study is highly suggestive of the strong need to increase the level of HIV awareness among Indian population via proper education and through various resources on information.
