Evaluation of the Effect of AIDS Health Education on College Students in Nanjing Fang Kun 152899;Wang Chongxu 152895; Song Yue 152894; Deng Lin 152898;Chen Chen 152922; LvRongrong 152921 ; Cheng Xiaoqing 152903Abstract: Objective: The purpose of this research is to know college students’ knowledge, attitude and behavior about AIDS in Jiangsu province, so we can evaluate the effect of AIDS intervention to provide evidence for AIDS public education more effectively in the future. Methods: We educated college students of six pilot universities by playing the videos and sending health education prescription as the main way of risk warning education. We selected students from each college randomly as evaluation object, the questionnaire mainly included students’ basic information, AIDS related knowledge and sexual health.Descriptive analysiswas conducted to analysis s tudents’ basic situation and the sexual health conditions,chi-square test was used to analysis the difference of the education on HIV/AIDS related knowledge, awareness and attitude. Results: After education, the awareness level of the basic knowledge of AIDS in all students increased from 69.05% to 82.15%(Χ2=147.335,P<0.001), but the level of awareness of the students varied from school to school, and there is a big space for improvement in each school; Introduction of the programme witnessed a dramatic change in the students’ attitudes towards AIDS. For instance, the answers of“students’attitudes towards the importance of teaching AIDS related education in schools,someone suspected of being infected with the AIDS/HIV virus will immediately do the antibody detection test or not and the willingness to use condom during the sexual encounter” ha ve proportionally increased in the positive direction. Conclusion: The evaluation results show that the pilot educational activities have made significant effect. Although promotion of AIDS education in the colleges has proven to be fruitful, beneficial and worthy enough but some part of the education still needs to be improved and strengthened.Key words: College students; AIDS; Intervention; EffectsIntroductionIntervention on college students is an effective measure to prevent AIDS transmission, such as peer education, behavior intervention and health education. Health education is an extremely valid means to promote awareness of AIDS among university student. For example, in one of the conclusions of the QaziRahman’s report, the accuracy of HIV/AIDS health knowledge of the students after health education was higher significantly than that before (P<0.05). Following, similar lines, Wilson(2003), a researcher ofDepartmentofPsychology, Institute ofPsychiatry in the University of London says, “After healt h education, the level of students’ knowledge about AIDS raised. The awareness rate of AIDS could be improved by health education in various forms and that was important for the prevention of AIDS.”Disputes exist about the long-term effects of health education. An apparent instant effect could be gain through short-term AIDS education among university students, but the outcome of long-term intervention was not ideal. Continuance and repetition should be taken into account for satisfactory effect (Friedman, 2007; Lin Peixian, 2009).This brings to the purpose of this study, to identify the knowledge, attitude and relevant behavior about AIDS among university students, to evaluate the effect of AIDS health education, to provide the theoretical basis for AIDS prevention in universities.For this paper, through stratified cluster sampling in six universities, more than 3000 university students completed self-administered questionnaires before and after health education. Questionnaires were designed with expert consultation and investigators were trained by experts. Questionnaires were done under investigators’ supervision. All these measures were taken to control bias and to ensure the accuracy of the results.MethodologyThe study aimed to evaluate the effect of AIDS health education on college students in Nanjing, Jiangsu.3250 college students were recruited in the study, including 1879 female college students and 1371 male college students, through stratified cluster sampling in six universities.The questionnaire was designed by some experts and doctors. The questionnaire given to the university student consisted of 4 sections of 57 questions, the topics of which were the basic information of students, AIDS-related knowledge,attitudes towards AIDS prevention and the status of sexy health. The part of basic information included sex, age, nation, major and hometown, monthly income of family, marital status of parent, religious belief and emotional situations. AIDS-related knowledge includes the core knowledge of AIDS prevention among youth students and the correct use of condom. The third part was composed of the AIDS education in school, attitude towards HIV testing and condom. The status of sexy health consisted of prevalence of sexual behavior.The investigators were the doctors, who came from hospitals in the six universities. The investigators received special training by experts before research project was carried out. The students completed the questionnaires anonymously before and after health education und er investigators’ supervision.The data were inputted into computer by Epi Data 3.02 program. The data were computer-analyzed using an SPSS program. The quantitative data were descripted by mean and standard deviation. Chi-square, Fisher-tests, T-tests and ANOV A analyses were conducted in order to evaluate the effect of AIDS health education.ResultsOur key issue in this study is to evaluate the effect of AIDS health education on college students in Nanjing, Jiangsu. The issue has been explored by the questionnaire about theawareness rate of the basic knowledge of AIDS.3250 students were classified into six groups according to their colleges. The participants’ awareness rate, which were obtained by dividing the number of awareness by the overall number of students in different group, then we compared the awareness rate before and afterFigure 1 The difference in awareness rate of the basic knowledge of AIDSThe chart provides the information about the difference in awareness rate of the basic knowledge of AIDS in terms of the different schools before and after the health education was introduced in schools. We can immediately see that there were substantial differences in the proportion of awareness rate before and after the health education was introduced in different colleges. The awareness rate of the basic knowledge of AIDS in all student increased from 69.0% to 82.1%（χ2＝147.335,P<0.001）after the access to health education. The awareness rate of students from the six schools also shows a rise of certain degree, the rise of 3.3%~23.3%. The highest increase in awareness rate is 23.3% in Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology following Nanjing Medical University (19.3%) and Nanjing University (11.6%). The students in Nanjing University have the highest lever(88.4%) of the awareness rate of the basic knowledge of AIDS, the students’ awareness rate inJiangsu Maritime Institute and Hohai University is still less than 80%. The result supports the notion that health education plays an important role in increasing students’ awareness and knowledge towards AIDS.To probe difference in awareness level before and after heath education, the Student's t test was adopted, which aimed at discerning whether the comparison between them reached the significant level or not. The T test showed that the difference in awareness level before and after the introduction of health education was significant. In conclusion, our study proves that the health education is more beneficial and effective to increase students’ awareness and knowledge towards AIDS as well as protects them from AIDS.DiscussionThrough the large-sample investigation to evaluate the influence of AIDS health education among the college student in Nanjing, we found that the awareness rate of the basic knowledge of AIDS increased significantly in the post-intervention period. And different rising percentages were showed between different universities. What’s more, there is a big rise space about the knowledge of AIDS.It is extremely necessary for college students to accept the AIDS health education. Because of the higher of the College students' knowledge level, accept ability and the social responsibility, they are not only the protected objects of the HIV infection but also the major force of AIDS prevention and control. They can spread knowledge relating the prevention and control of AIDS to their peers and people around them. Consistent with previous research results, college students' cognition of AIDS have an obviously increase after carrying out the intervention. However, some parts of the awareness rate of AIDS prevention knowledge are still relatively low. For example, the awareness rate that reasonable nutrition and exercise to increase the resistance can’t avoid HIV i nfection is 33.9%. It states that health education of AIDS prevention knowledge needs a long term.Unexpectedly, the existing knowledge of AIDS on college students in Nanjing mainly comes from the network instead of school health education. In contrast to our findings, college students really intend to obtain knowledge through the way of school health education. This suggests that health education carried by universities at present can’t meet the college students’ needs.To sum up, the importance of the AIDS health education should be realized. AIDS prevention health education has the feature of complexity, difficulty and is a processof repeated education. AIDS health education in universities should be put into the schools’ integral work plan and populari ze knowledge systematically, deeply and enduringly.ConclusionOur study indicated that there are considerable differences between 6 pilot college students in AIDS related knowledge, attitudes and sexual behavior. School education played an important role in reducing the risk of AIDS among university students. However, the results of our study showed that a large portion of students neverreceived an education on AIDS at middle school. Finally, there was a significant rise on the awareness rate of AID-related knowledge after AIDS health education.This study has some implications for AIDS health education. Firstly, the evaluation results show that the pilot educational activities have made significant effect, it is worth to promote AIDS education in colleges, but some part of the education still need to be strengthened; Secondly, more students know that thecenters for disease control and preventioncan provide free counseling and testing services on HIV through AIDS health education .Thirdly ,this study and health education improved the attitudes of some students towards the importance of AID health education.However, there were some limitations in this study. The representative of samples from 6 pilot colleges may not entirely represent all of the college students in Jiangsu Province. Besides, there were some possible measurement errors although we attempted to minimize the errors in measurement.Reference[1] Qazi, Rahman, et al. "HIV and AIDS related knowledge, sources of information, and reported need for further education among dental students in Sudan-across sectional study." Bmc Public Health 8.18(2008):286.[2] Wilson, et al. "AIDS knowledge and educational needs of technical university students in Turkey." Patient Education & Counseling 51.2(2003):163–167.[3] Friedman, et al. "School-based HIV/AIDS education is associated with reduced risky sexual behaviors and better grades with gender and race/ethnicity differences. " Health Education Research 29.2(2007):330-9.[4] Lin, Peixian, et al. "Effectiveness of School-based Education on HIV/AIDS Knowledge, Attitude, and Behavior among Secondary School Students in Wuhan, China." Plos One 7.9(2009):: e44881.。