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Background: Research regarding Turkish university students' knowledge, attitudes/beliefs, and perceptions of risk about HIV/AIDS is fairly limited, and studies mainly result in information that is far from defining the real situation. Objective: The aim of this study is to examine Turkish physical education and sport students' awareness and attitudes regarding HIV and AIDS. Methods: A structured questionnaire was designed primarily to obtain information on HIV- and AIDS-related knowledge and attitudes of the Physical education and sports students. The software generated descriptive statistics relating to demographics and Physical education and sports students knowledge, and data were expressed as both means +/- standard deviations and percentages. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Student's t-test analyses were used to assess statistical significance. In all analyses, the usual significance level was 5%. Results: A sample of 545 physical education and sport students in Turkey were included in this study. The respondents exhibited a moderate level of knowledge about HIV and AIDS. However, the survey revealed some common misconceptions, indicating that physical education and sport students require additional training in the mechanisms of HIV transmission. We found some differences in the level of HIV-related knowledge between different demographic groups. Female students have a high level of awareness in terms of how HIV/AIDS is spread by contagion, the ways of guarding against HIV/AIDS, and the effects of HIV/AIDS. We also observed that knowledge levels show significant differences with both age and class. Our findings show that the major source of knowledge about AIDS was mass media, including television, the Internet and newspapers. These results are discussed within the framework of critical studies on HIV-related knowledge. Implications for the development of curricula and in-service training programs for physical education and sport students, organizations and institutions are discussed. Conclusion: It was concluded that Female students have a high level of awareness in terms of how HIV/AIDS is spread by contagion, the ways of guarding against HIV/AIDS, and the effects of HIV/AIDS. Further, knowledge levels show significant differences with both age and class whereas the major source of knowledge about AIDS was mass media, including television, the Internet and newspapers. |
