Comparing the knowledge and attitude about HIV/AIDS and the sexual behaviour of secondary school students of a missionary school and a public school
Borire, A.A.; Oyekunle, O.A.; Izekor, T.; Akinlonu, A.; Okanlawon, A.O.; Noronha, C.C.
Nigerian Quarterly Journal of Hospital Medicine 18(4): 206-210
2008
ISSN/ISBN: 0189-2657 PMID: 19391321 Document Number: 205495
A study of high school students attending a missionary school and a public school in Lagos was carried out to determine their knowledge and attitude about HIV/AIDS and to compare their sexual behaviour. Self administered questionnaires, were used for the respondents, selected by multistage sampling and a response rate of 98% was obtained. The average age of the population was 13.6 years. There was no significant difference in the knowledge of students from both schools about HIV/AIDS. 90% of all the respondents knew the exact meaning of HIV/AIDS. Most of the students got their information from the mass media (66%) and the school (57%). Only 5% and 0.3% of missionary and public school students respectively were informed by their parents. There was no significant statistical association between the type of school and the occurrence of sexual intercourse. However, only 4% of sexually active missionary students used condoms compared to the 37% of the public school students. Condom usage was associated with the type of school (X2 = 1830; P-value = 0.0000189). There was also a statistically significant relationship between condom use and the age, sex and class of sexually active students (P-value = 0.00000006; 0.00000032; 0.00497073 respectively). 25% of the sexually public students had multiple sexual partners, compared to 2% for the missionary school students. There was a statistically significant relationship between the type of school and the number of sexual partners (X2 = 11.37; P-value = 0.003390). The study recommends that age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education (including condom use) should be made available to students from both schools.