THE IMPORTANCE OF LEVELS OF KNOWLEDGE IN DEVELOPING A UNIFIED THEORY FOR HIV AIDS COUNSELING - A COMPARISON OF 2 CULTURALLY DIFFERENT SAMPLES/

This paper qualitatively compares the responses concerning knowledge a bout HIV/AIDS prevention methods that were obtained from two cross-cul turally different samples of students who were of a sexually active ag e. Canadian and Zimbabwean education students were sampled. The respon ses are presented and analyzed with the main purpose of placing the fi ndings in the context of Balmer's (1991) proposal of a unified theory for HIV/AIDS counselling The major focus of this paper is on HIV/AIDS infection prevention strategies. The differences in responses across t he two groups sampled suggest that it would be important to begin indi vidual and group-based prevention strategies with exploration of indiv idual levels of knowledge. Finally, implications for research are disc ussed.