43 There were also a number of other studies (such as Durojaiye, 2011; NUL, 2011), which were relevant because they looked into knowledge about HIV and AIDS among youth and young adults. These studies were of interest to establish how this target group perceived the
significance and appropriateness of educational materials that may have been used to equip them with knowledge.
2.2 LEVEL OF HIV/AIDS KNOWLEDGE AMONG YOUTH AND
44 awareness about HIV (NUL, 2011) before they joined the University. Although NUL was not using the risk reduction model, the study assessed the students’ level of knowledge on HIV prevention and transmission, their attitudes and behaviour towards people living with HIV and other related issues, their practices towards sexual intercourse, condom use, alcohol and drug use as well as peer pressure (NUL, 2011: 16-25). This study sought to find out what stage the Lesotho students had reached and whether they were involved in finding solutions to HIV prevention.
As with the India study, the NUL study revealed that HIV knowledge was widespread among students because at least 75 percent of the respondents were knowledgeable about HIV
prevention and transmission. Overall, 41 percent of the respondents knew all the five methods of either transmission or prevention of HIV. On average, respondents knew at least four methods of prevention of HIV transmission. Therefore, they were considered to be well informed. Regarding sexual practices, where almost half (48 percent) of the students claimed not to be sexually active, for those who were, condoms were the main method of protection against Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). Although NUL seemed to have made the right assumptions about the learners’ predisposition to HIV information before joining the
university, further information about how the students acquired their knowledge, what they liked and what they did not like about the mode of teaching that was used, or the channel(s) of communication that were used, was missing. Such information could improve understanding of how to develop appropriate communication strategies that would further enhance
development of quality IEC materials in the future. Although the focus here is only on print IEC materials, the hope is for this study to address these information or knowledge gaps.
A cross-sectional descriptive study conducted by Sachdeva, Malik, Sachdeva and Sachdev (2011) to examine the level of HIV/AIDS knowledge among the first year students in a health faculty of one of the universities in India was also reviewed. Even though most people were considered not to be infected with HIV in India, these researchers deemed it necessary to carry out a study among communities at regular intervals to establish their HIV/AIDS knowledge, so that they could give planners information for “fine tuning the educational activities
45 undertaken through use of IEC materials and Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) strategies” (Sachdeva et al., 2011: 156). The focus of the study were first year nursing and pharmacy students. Both IEC materials and BCC strategies were the main pillars of the action undertaken by stakeholders to control the spread of HIV. Results showed a high level of knowledge on the difference between HIV and AIDS, routes of transmission of infection and methods of prevention. The knowledge regarding issues related to the non-curability of infection was, however, low.
The study by Sachdeva and colleagues only concentrated on determining the students’ degree of knowledge about HIV/AIDS. They concluded that there were still plenty of chances for universities to equip students with comprehensive knowledge and for students to positively change their behaviour and attitudes towards HIV/AIDS issues during their training at the university, since “ignorance and erroneous beliefs” have the ability to drive a person to behave and communicate in a certain way (Sachdeva et al., 2011: 157). They suggested that
educational endeavour should be broadened to also deal with opportunistic diseases that take advantage of a low immune system and anti-retroviral therapy. They also concluded that education can possibly straighten myths and misconceptions such as a belief that infection can be spread by social activities like a handshake, or playing together with people with HIV, or through mosquito bites. It seems that over the years educational efforts have mainly only focused on informing communities about risk of HIV transmission, methods of prevention and promotion of good practices. This study also set out to explore to what extent these issues prevailed among the Lesotho tertiary education students.
The reviewed literature, and the studies of Durojaiye (2011), NUL (2011) and Sachdeva et al.
(2011), significantly indicated different levels of HIV/AIDS knowledge among youth and young adults. However, Durojaiye (2011) specified that educational intervention aimed at influencing risk perception should involve these target groups in every step of all such endeavours. While learners at the health faculty of the university in India showed knowledge on HIV/AIDS issues, (Sachdeva et al., 2011), and learners at NUL appeared to be
knowledgeable about these issues as well (NUL, 2011), the studies failed to provide
46 information on how to develop appropriate communication strategies that enhanced
development of quality IEC materials. For instance, they did not include information about how students acquired their knowledge, what they liked and did not like about the mode of teaching that was used, or the channel(s) of communication that were used for them to acquire knowledge. Hence, this study aimed to discover the preferences of young adults about the mode of teaching that is used, or the channel(s) of communication that are used in HIV prevention interventions with the aim to produce data that will inform policymakers and print IEC materials producers so that they can improve on future HIV education.
There were some studies that confirmed or supported these substantive findings, even though they were not specifically targeted at youth or young adults. These studies included ones that inspected the receptiveness and effectiveness of IEC materials used to curtail the spread of HIV (for example Onyene et al., 2010; Rawjee, 2003; Marschall, 2003 as well as Preece and Ntseane, 2003).