Conhecimento de universitários sobre o HIV/AIDS

Abstract

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is capable of causing acquired human immunodeficiency syndrome, which is the second leading cause of death among young people. The aim of this study was to analyze the level of knowledge of university students in the interior of Maranhão about HIV. This is a cross-sectional analytical study with a quantitative approach, carried out in March 2022 with 219 students from a public university located in the interior of the state of Maranhão. Data was collected using a sociodemographic questionnaire and the 43-item HIV Knowledge Questionnaire (HIV-K-Q), validated and cross-culturally adapted into Brazilian Portuguese. The data collected was exported to an electronic database formulated in Microsoft Excel version 2013 and then analyzed using Jamovi software (version 2.3). Most of the participants were female (73.06%), heterosexual (92.23%), brown (58.90%), single (80.36%), Catholic (48.40%) and reported having a family income of 1 minimum wage (41.55%). When considering the scores, it was clear that a large proportion had good knowledge (51.60%) as they achieved scores of 75% or more, and a small number of participants (8.22%) had scores below 50%. It should be noted that only one question relating to condom use and its effectiveness in preventing HIV was answered correctly by all the participants, and five statements were answered correctly.