Secondary School Student’s Knowledge of And Att¥tude Towards HIV/AIDS: Case Study of Secondary Schools in Nsukka Urban

This study was designed to find out secondary school students’ knowledge of and attitude towards HIV/AIDS in secondary schools in Nsukka Urban. The survey research design was used for the study. A sample of 300 senior secondary school students was used and the questionnaire was the only instrument used for data collection. The responses were analyzed using percentages and mean scores. The t-test statistic was used to test the null hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that secondary school students in Nsukka had high level of knowledge of HIV/AIDS and that the knowledge did not very according to gender. The findings also revealed that the students had negative attitude towards people living with AIDS. It was then recommended that schools should encourage students to communicate this knowledge of HIV/AIDS to their friends, parents and community members so that AIDS can be eradicated or controlled. Introduction Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a clinical condition that results from infection with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which progressively damages the body’s ability to protect itself from disease organisms (Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 1990). HIV targets and kills the T4 helper cells, which are a population of lymphocytes that are essential to the body’s defense against diseases (Bakare, 1996). Haseltine (1993) described AIDS as a progressive degenerative disease of major organs and systems including the immune system and the central nervous system. AIDS, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) (1994a), is the end stage of i n f e c t ion s w i t h H I V v i r u s characterized by a cluster of illnesses. Such cluster of illnesses, often referred to as opportunistic infections, arise as a result of the victim’s suppressed immune system due to the HIV infection.