Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude and Belief of Medical Students towards AIDS Prevention and Transmission in Mashhad, Iran

Abstract Background: Iran is estimated to have about 73000 (50000-130000) people living with human immune deficiency virus (HIV) by end of 2015. Medical students are of special emphasis in agenda setting against Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the Knowledge, attitudes and practice of medical students to HIV/AIDS. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among medical students in Mashhad, Iran in a six-month period at the second half of the year 2016. Stratified cluster random sampling technique was used to select 202 students in 4 courses of medical education. The world health organization’s instrument was used for assessing knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about HIV/AIDS. One way ANOVA or Kruskal wallis test were used for data analysis. Results: The mean age of the subjects was 22.31+2.97 years. Most of them were male (65.7%) and 77.4% were single. Medical students had almost good general knowledge about HIV/AIDS. 28.9-98% answered correctly to this section. In transmission knowledge section there were some misconceptions about the routes of transmission and 15.6-98.5% answered correctly. The majority of students had positive attitudes toward HIV/AIDS, 74-98.2% of respondents answered correctly to this section. Overall 56-98% of students responded correctly to different beliefs domain questions. There were significant differences in mean knowledge score between four different courses of medical education (P=0.004). Conclusion: Findings indicated a statistically significant betterment in some aspect in knowledge, attitude and belief toward HIV/AIDs, but it was expected that final year medical students had more correct information, a fact not indicated in this study. Keywords: Attitude, Belief, HIV/AIDS, Knowledge, Medical Student