Knowledge attitude and practice toward STI, HIV/AIDS among high school students in Gao (Northen-Mali in West Africa).

Abstract

HIV prevalence increased from 0.6 to 1.1 % between 2001 and 2006 in the region of Gao. In Africa the HIV/AIDS pandemic affects mainly young people and spread by sexual transmission. We conducted a cross sectional study among high school students of Gao to evaluate their knowledge, attitude and practice toward HIV infection and STI. Subject enrolment was exhaustive or randomly sampled depending on the school population size. An individual and anonymous form was filled by students after an informed consent. We interviewed 446 students. Their mean age was 16.6±1.35 years, the majority were male (66.5%), 6.1% were married and 5.2% already had a child. Forty-eight percents of student already had sexual relations. The proportion of boys who already had sexual relations was significantly higher than girls (56.6% vs 30.8%) (p<10-3 ). The mean age at the first sexual relation was significantly lower in boys (13.4±2.5 vs 15.5±1.8 years) (p<10-3 ). Sixty eight percent of student said they have already heard about STI; 87.4% esteemed they knew about HIV, but the proportion of student who knew the different ways of HIV transmission was lower: 78.7 % for sexual transmission; 71.3% for blood transmission and only 30.8 % for mother to child transmission. As source of information about HIV, TV was the most frequent (82.1%); followed by radio (66.4%); and discussions with friends (48%) or parents (23.3%). The proportion girls who talk with parents is significantly higher than boys (29.5% vs 20.2%: p=0,028). The fight against AIDS and STI should be based on prevention by providing proper information to youths before they start sexual activity and school can be the right place to help them to have correct knowledge and safe practice.